Vecinos DeBarrio Uno v. City of Holyoke, Civ. A. No. 92-30052-MAP.

Decision Date27 March 1995
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. 92-30052-MAP.
Citation880 F. Supp. 911
PartiesVECINOS DeBARRIO UNO, et al. v. CITY OF HOLYOKE, et al.
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

Daniel J. Gleason, Julie A. Trachten, Nutter, McClennen & Fish, Boston, MA, David P. Hoose, Alan M. Katz, Katz, Sasson & Hoose, Springfield, MA, William Newman, Lesser, Newman, Souweine & Nasser, Northampton, MA, Alan J. Rom, Lawyers Com'n of Civ. Rights, Ozell Hudson, Jr., Lawyers' Committee for Civ. Rights, Boston, MA, for plaintiffs Vecinos DeBarrio Uno, by its President, Maria Nieves, Latino Citizens United for Holyoke, Lillian Santiago-Garcia, Maria Santiago, Sonia Rodriguez, Piculin Rolan-Cruz, Ana Ramos, Gloria Caballer Arce, Luis-Orlando Isaza.

Steven P. Perlmutter, Harrison & McGuire, P.C., Boston, MA, Edward R. Mitnick, Asst. City Sol., Kenneth J. Cote, Jr., City of Holyoke Law Dept., Holyoke, MA, for defendants City of Holyoke, William A. Hamilton, as Mayor of City of Holyoke, Holyoke Bd. of Registrars, Henry Wheeler, Elba Rueda, Timothy Howes, as Members of Bd. of Registrars.

Thomas E. Kanwit, U.S. Atty's Office, Boston, MA, for movant Josephine Carabello.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

PONSOR, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs, two Hispanic community organizations and eight Hispanic citizens of the City of Holyoke, challenge the city's election system for School Committee and City Council, charging that its at-large components violate the federal Voting Rights Act of 1982.1 This statute prohibits electoral mechanisms that provide minorities "less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b).

Having considered the testimony and exhibits presented over eleven days of non-jury trial, the extensive written submissions following trial and the final argument, this court concludes that the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate a violation of the Act as regards the School Committee. The School Committee comprises ten members, of whom only two (not counting the city's mayor, who sits automatically as chairperson) are elected at-large. No Hispanic person has ever run for election to either of the School Committee's two at-large seats. At the same time, however, Hispanic citizens have had the opportunity to elect, with fair consistency during the short relevant period, representatives of their choice to the School Committee's district seats. As of today, they have the power to elect two representatives, or twenty percent of the School Committee, very close to their proportion of voting age population. While this proportionality is not dispositive in itself, in combination with other factors discussed below it is sufficient to tip the scales in defendants' favor.

With regard to the City Council, however, the court does find a violation of the Voting Rights Act. A flat majority, eight out of fifteen members of the City Council, is elected at-large. While qualified Hispanic candidates have run for the City Council at-large, and Hispanic voters have supported them, their election has been foreclosed by consistent non-Hispanic white bloc voting. Viewed in the totality of the circumstances in Holyoke, the at-large system for electing a majority of the City Council can only be seen as depriving the city's Hispanic minority of a fair opportunity to participate in the political process. The court will therefore prohibit further elections for the City Council under the existing system, and will set the matter down for further proceedings on the proper remedy.

The main body of the opinion below will be presented in three parts. The first will discuss the standards to be applied in a case of this sort, as contained both in the Voting Rights Act itself and in the decisions of the Supreme Court. The second will recount the court's findings of fact. In the third section, the court will apply the pertinent law to the facts and state its conclusions.

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

Nearly three decades ago, Congress enacted § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (the "Act"), as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, to eliminate discrimination in voting that had plagued the nation since the end of Reconstruction in the 1870's. Congress, together with the President, crafted the Act to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment's guarantee that no citizen's right to vote shall "be denied or abridged ... on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." U.S. Const. amend. XV, § 1; see also Voinovich v. Quilter, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 113 S.Ct. 1149, 1155, 122 L.Ed.2d 500, 510 (1993). In order to effectuate its purpose, the statute is to be given "the broadest possible scope." Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U.S. 380, 403, 111 S.Ct. 2354, 2368, 115 L.Ed.2d 348 (1991), quoting Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U.S. 544, 567, 89 S.Ct. 817, 832, 22 L.Ed.2d 1 (1969).

Heavily underlining the statute's original goal, Congress in 1982 amended the Act to make it clear that a finding of a positive intent to discriminate was not required to make out a Section 2 violation. Latino Political Action Committee v. City of Boston, 784 F.2d 409, 412 (1st Cir.1986). These amendments were designed to repudiate the Supreme Court's decision in City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980), which had placed on plaintiffs the virtually impossible burden to show discriminatory intent before a voting scheme could be successfully challenged under the Act. The 1982 amendments firmly installed a "results" test in place of the Bolden standard.

The full text of the amended Section 2 reads as follows:

(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 1973b(f)(2) of this title, as provided in subsection (b) of this section. (b) A violation of subsection (a) of this section is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) of this section in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The extent to which members of a protected class have been elected to office in the State or political subdivision is one circumstance which may be considered: Provided, That nothing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.

42 U.S.C. § 1973 (as amended Pub.L. 97-205, § 3, 96 Stat. 134.)

Section 2 now prohibits any practice or procedure that "interacting with social or historical conditions" has the effect of impairing the opportunity for a protected class to elect its candidate of choice on an equal basis with other voters. Voinovich v. Quilter, ___ U.S. at ___, 113 S.Ct. at 1156, 122 L.Ed. at 512, quoting Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 47, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 2764, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986).

As has been frequently noted, the language of Section 2 quoted above embodies a Congressional compromise, highlighted in the final sentence of the provision, that has made construction and application of the statue difficult at times.

"There is an inherent tension between what Congress wished to do and what it wished to avoid" — between Congress' "intent to allow vote dilution claims to be brought under § 2" and its intent to avoid "creating a right to proportional representation for minority voters."

Holder v. Hall, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 114 S.Ct. 2581, 2613, 129 L.Ed.2d 687 (1994), (Ginzberg, J., dissenting and quoting Justice O'Connor's separate concurrence in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 84, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 2783, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986)).

As Justice Ginzberg has noted, however, this difficult task "is one that the courts must undertake because it is their mission to effectuate Congress' multiple purposes as best they can." Id. ___ U.S. at ___, 114 S.Ct. at 2625.

The Gingles decision remains the starting place for this effort. In the Gingles case, plaintiffs challenged certain multi-member districts and one single-member district in North Carolina's post-1980 legislative apportionment plan. Justice Brennan's decision for the Court, largely affirming the district court's holding in favor of the plaintiffs, provides the analytical structure still to be used in a claim under § 2. Johnson v. De Grandy, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 114 S.Ct. 2647, 2656, 129 L.Ed.2d 775 (1994).

Gingles sets forth three now-familiar threshold conditions that must be established to prove a § 2 violation: (1) that the minority group is "sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district"; (2) that the minority group is "politically cohesive"; and (3) that "the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate." Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. at 46, 50-51, 106 S.Ct. at 2764, 2766-2767; see also Johnson v. De Grandy, ___ U.S. at ___, 114 S.Ct. at 2656 (reiterating the Gingles threshold conditions).

The first and second preconditions — geographic compactness/numerousness and minority political cohesion — are needed "to establish that the minority has the potential to elect a representative of its own choice in some single member district." Growe v. Emison, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 113 S.Ct. 1075, 1084, 122 L.Ed.2d 388 (1993). Minority political cohesion and majority bloc voting, the second and third elements, taken together, are necessary to establish that "the challenged districting thwarts a distinctive...

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3 cases
  • Uno v. City of Holyoke
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit
    • August 2, 1995
    ...court found merit in the plaintiffs' complaint with regard to councilmanic elections and granted relief. See Vecinos De Barrio Uno v. City of Holyoke, 880 F.Supp. 911 (D.Mass.1995). 1 After careful consideration of a bulky record, we are unable to square the lower court's factual findings w......
  • Vecinos De Barrio Uno v. City of Holyoke, Civil Action No. 92-30052-MAP.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts
    • April 18, 1997
    ...lawsuit may be found in the district court's March 1995 decision and the First Circuit's opinion on appeal. Vecinos De Barrio Uno v. City of Holyoke, 880 F.Supp. 911 (D.Mass.1995), vacated and remanded, 72 F.3d 973 (1st Cir.1995). This memorandum will confine itself to facts and law necessa......
  • Vecinos De Barrio Uno v. City of Holyoke, Civil Action No. 92-30052-MAP.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts
    • May 23, 1996
    ...electoral system for at-large positions on the Holyoke City Council violated the Voting Rights Act of 1982. Vecinos De Barrio Uno v. City of Holyoke, 880 F.Supp. 911 (D.Mass.1995). On December 29, 1995, the First Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case for a more detailed explication of ......

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