Raleigh Wake Citizens Ass'n v. Wake Cnty. Bd. of Elections
| Decision Date | 01 July 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 16-1271,No. 16-1270,16-1270 |
| Citation | 827 F.3d 333 |
| Parties | Raleigh Wake Citizens Association; Jannet B. Barnes; Beverley S. Clark; William B. Clifford; Brian Fitzsimmons; Greg Flynn ; Dustin Matthew Ingalls; Amy T. Lee ; Erwin Portman; Susan Portman; Jane Rogers ; Barbara Vandenbergh; John G. Vandenbergh; Amygayle L. Womble; Perry Woods, Plaintiffs–Appellants, v. Wake County Board of Elections, Defendant–Appellee, and Chad Barefoot, in his official capacity as Senator and primary sponsor of SB 181; Phillip E. Berger, in his official capacity as President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina Senate; Tim Moore, in his official capacity as Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Defendants. Calla Wright; Willie J. Bethel ; Amy T. Lee ; Amygayle L. Womble; John G. Vandenbergh; Barbara Vandenbergh; Ajamu G. Dillahunt; Elaine E. Dillahunt; Lucinda H. Mackethan; William B. Clifford; Ann Long Campbell; Greg Flynn ; Beverley S. Clark; Concerned Citizens for African-American Children, d/b/a Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African-American Children; Raleigh Wake Citizens Association, Plaintiffs–Appellants, v. Wake County Board of Elections, Defendant–Appellee, and State of North Carolina, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
ARGUED: Anita Sue Earls, Allison Jean Riggs, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Durham, North Carolina, for Appellants. Charles Foster Marshall, III, Brooks, Pierce, Mclendon, Humphrey & Leonard, L.L.P., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: George E. Eppsteiner, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Durham, North Carolina, for Appellants. Matthew B. Tynan, Jessica Thaller–Moran, Brooks, Pierce, Mclendon, Humphrey & Leonard, L.L.P., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Before MOTZ, GREGORY, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
Reversed and remanded in part and affirmed in part by published opinion. Judge Wynn
wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge Gregory joined. Judge Motz wrote a dissenting opinion.
, Circuit Judge:
The right to vote is “fundamental,” and once that right “is granted to the electorate, lines may not be drawn which are inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Bush v. Gore , 531 U.S. 98, 104–05, 121 S.Ct. 525, 148 L.Ed.2d 388 (2000)
(quotation marks and citation omitted). “It must be remembered that” the right to vote “can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise.” Id. (quoting Reynolds v. Sims , 377 U.S. 533, 555, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964)
).
In these consolidated cases, Plaintiffs, registered voters and civic organizations in Wake County, North Carolina, claim that under the two (identically drawn) redistricting laws they challenge, some Wake County School Board and Wake County Board of County Commissioners districts have been over-populated, while others have been under-populated. Plaintiffs further assert that these discrepancies result in some votes counting more while others count less, and that the discrepancies stem from illegitimate redistricting factors. As explained below, we agree, hold that Plaintiffs have proven their state and federal one person, one vote claims, and therefore reverse.
Plaintiffs also claim that one discrete district was the product of racial gerrymandering. We hold that the district court did not clearly err in rejecting that claim and thus affirm.
In the years leading up to 2013, the Wake County School Board (“School Board”) consisted of nine members elected from single-member districts. Those districts were subject to change every ten years following the decennial census.
In 2010, the census showed that Wake County's population had grown by 43.51% over the preceding decade, causing the then-existing districting plan to have a maximum population deviation of 47.89%.1 The School Board, at that time dominated by registered Republicans,2 redrew its districts in light of the 2010 census.
That effort led to a redistricting plan with geographically compact districts having a maximum population deviation of 1.75% and no district deviating from the ideal district population by even 1%. The first election under the new districting, in Fall 2011, resulted in a School Board with a Democratic majority.
In 2013, the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly (“General Assembly”), over the objection of a majority of the School Board and every Democratic and African-American legislator in the General Assembly, passed a local bill, Session Law 2013–110, making numerous changes to the School Board's method of selection. Among other things, Session Law 2013-110 changed the School Board's make-up from nine single-member districts to seven single-member districts and set less geographically compact boundaries for this new set of districts. The maximum population deviation among the new single-member districts swelled to over 7%.
Additionally, Session Law 2013-110 created two “super districts” that overlaid the single-member districts. J.A. 160. One super district formed a donut of outer, more rural areas of the county, while the other formed a donut hole in the inner, urban area. The maximum population deviation between the super districts exceeded even that of the single-member districts—just shy of 10%. Session Law 2013-110 moved elections to even-numbered years, and limited the School Board's ability to make changes to its method of election until 2021.
In August 2013, thirteen individuals and two civic organizations filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, challenging the constitutionality of the districts that Session Law 2013-110 established. The complaint alleged that the plan unevenly weighted the votes of citizens in the county for impermissible reasons, thereby violating the one-person, one-vote guarantees of the federal and state constitutions. In March 2014, the district court dismissed Plaintiffs' suit for failure to state a claim. Wright v. North Carolina , 975 F.Supp.2d 539 (E.D.N.C. 2014)
. Plaintiffs appealed.
In April 2015, while Plaintiffs' appeal was pending before this Court, the General Assembly enacted Session Law 2015-4, making the electoral system for the Wake County Board of County Commissioners (“Board of County Commissioners”) identical to the system it had created for the School Board with Session Law 2013-110.3 With Session Law 2015-4, too, the General Assembly forced a local bill on Wake County despite opposition from the majority of the Board of County Commissioners, polled Wake County voters, nearly every Democratic state legislator, and every African-American legislator in the General Assembly. Fourteen individuals and a civic organization filed suit shortly thereafter, challenging the Board of County Commissioners' redistricting plan as violating the one person, one vote guarantees of the state and federal constitutions.
In Plaintiffs' appeal from the district court's March 2014 dismissal, this Court, in May 2015, held that “Plaintiffs' allegations in support of their claim that [Session Law 2013-110] violates the one person, one vote principle suffice to survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.” Wright v. North Carolina , 787 F.3d 256, 269 (4th Cir. 2015)
. We therefore reinstated Plaintiffs' complaint against the Wake County Board of Elections.
On remand, the district court consolidated the suits challenging Session Law 2013-110 and Session Law 2015-4 and expedited discovery. Discovery was further limited by the state legislators' refusing Plaintiffs' discovery requests, claiming legislative privilege.4 In December 2015, the district court held a bench trial, in which Plaintiffs presented numerous witnesses, including legislators, citizens, and experts, as well as copious documentary evidence, with 481 exhibits including: expert reports and supporting data; school assignment maps; campaign finance reports; results data from various elections; excerpts of legislative transcripts; and public polling results. By contrast, Defendant, the Board of Elections that administers elections with no stake in the “political interests of the General Assembly,” Trial Tr. vol. I, 13:24-25, presented none of its own. Defendant simply cross-examined Plaintiffs' witnesses and made legal argument.
Nevertheless, the district court ruled for Defendant. Raleigh Wake Citizens Ass'n v. Wake Cty. Bd. of Elections , No. 5:13–CV–607–D, 166 F.Supp.3d 553, 2016 WL 1060378 (E.D.N.C. Feb. 26, 2016)
. The district court discredited every single one of Plaintiffs' witnesses, for example as “anecdotal,” id. at 599–601, 2016 WL 1060378, at *28–29, and “unhelpful,” id. at 604–05, 2016 WL 1060378, at *32. It went on to hold, among other things, that “in order to prove a prima facie case in a one person one vote challenge, plaintiffs must at least negate the most common legitimate reasons that could explain the legislature's action.” Id. at 589, 2016 WL 1060378, at *22 (quotation marks and citations omitted). The district court held that Plaintiffs failed to meet this and the other requisite burdens. Plaintiffs appealed.
On appeal, “ ‘[w]e review judgments resulting from a bench trial under a mixed standard of review: factual findings may be reversed only if clearly erroneous, while conclusions of law are examined de novo.’ ” Nat'l Fed'n of the Blind v. Lamone , 813 F.3d 494, 502 (4th Cir. 2016)
(quoting Plasterers' Local Union No. 96 Pension Plan v. Pepper , 663 F.3d 210, 215 (4th Cir. 2011) ). Findings will be deemed clearly erroneous if, for example, “even though there is some evidence to support the finding, the reviewing court, on review of the record, is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made,” or if findings were made using “incorrect legal standards.” Consol. Coal Co. v. Local 1643, United Mine Workers of Am. , 48 F.3d 125, 128 (4th Cir. 1995) (quotation marks and...
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