League of United Latin American Citizens Council No. 4434 v. Clements
| Decision Date | 11 May 1990 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 89-8095,90-8014,s. 89-8095 |
| Citation | 902 F.2d 293 |
| Parties | LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS COUNCIL NO. 4434, Plaintiffs-Appellees, and Jesse Oliver, et al., Intervening Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. William P. CLEMENTS, etc., et al., Defendants. Jim MATTOX, et al., Defendants-Appellees, Appellants, v. Judge F. Harold ENTZ, etc., Judge Sharolyn Wood, etc., and George S. Bayoud, Jr., etc., Defendants-Appellants, and Tom Rickhoff, Susan D. Reed, John J. Specia, Jr., Sid L. Harle, Sharon Macrae and Michael P. Pedan, Bexar County, Texas State District Judges, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
David C. Godbey, Jr., Robert H. Mow, Jr., Hughes & Luce, Dallas, Tex., for Judge Entz.
J. Eugene Clements, Evelyn V. Keyes, Porter & Clements, Houston, Tex., for Judge Wood.
John L. Hill, Jr., Andy Taylor, Liddell, Sapp, Zivley, Hill & Laboon, Houston, Tex., for Bayoud.
Mark H. Dettman, Midland, Tex., for Dist. Judges of Travis County.
Gerald H. Goldstein, Goldstein, Goldstein & Hilley, Seagal V. Wheatley, Donald R. Philbin, Jr., Oppenheimer, Rosenberg, Kelleher & Wheatley, Joel H. Pullen, Kaufman, Becker, Pullen & Reibach, San Antonio, Michael E. Tigar, Austin, Royal B. Lea, III, San Antonio, Tex., for Tom Rickhoff, et al.
R. James George, Mr. John M. Harmon, Mrs. Margaret H. Taylor, Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody, Austin, Tex., for Chapman and Stovall.
Walter L. Irvin, Dallas, Tex., for amicus curiae Brashear, et al.
Mark Gross, Atty. Gen., U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civ. Div., Washington, D.C., for amicus curiae U.S.
Orlando Garcia, San Antonio, Tex., Bertha Alicia Mejia, Larry Evans, Houston, Jose Garza, Judith Sanders Castro, Mexican American Legal, Defense Educational Fund, San Antonio, Tex., for amicus curiae Mexican American Legislative Caucus.
Tom Maness, Dist. Atty., Tom Rugg, Asst. Dist. Atty., Beaumont, Tex., for Jefferson County.
William L. Garrett, Garrett, Thompson & Chang, Dallas, Tex., for Lulac, et al.
Rolando L. Rios, Susan Finkelstein, San Antonio, Tex., for League of United Latin Citizens.
Gabrielle K. McDonald, Matthews & Branscomb, Austin, Tex., for Legislative Black Caucus, et al.
Renea Hicks, Javier Guajardo, Sp. Asst. Attys. Gen., Austin, Tex., for Jim Mattox, et al.
Edward B. Cloutman, II, Mullinax, Wells, Baab & Cloutman, E. Brice Cunningham, Dallas, Tex., for Jesse Oliver, et al.
Sherrilyn A. Ifill, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., New York City, for Houston Lawyers Ass'n.
Michael Ramsey, Ramsey & Tyson, Houston, Tex., for amicus curiae 27 Incumbent Judges.
Paul Strohl, Daniel M. Ogden, Dallas, Tex., Daniel J. Popeo, Paul D. Kamenar, Alan M. Slobodin, Washington, D.C., for amicus curiae Washington Legal Foundation.
Appeals From the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.
Before KING, JOHNSON and HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judges.
This is a voting rights suit challenging the election of district judges on a county-wide basis in Texas. The suit was filed in a United States District Court by the League of United Latin American Citizens against the Attorney General of Texas, the Secretary of State, and other state officials, seeking a declaratory judgment that the at-large election of state district judges in nine targeted counties is illegal under Sec. 2, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1973, and violative of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments of the United States Constitution. Plaintiffs requested the district court to enjoin further elections and to impose a districting scheme that included single-member districts. Texas has 254 counties, but the suit attacked only Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, Jefferson, Lubbock, Hector, and Midland Counties. 1 These nine counties have more than one district judge elected county-wide, and elect 172 of the state's 390 district judges. As we will explain, the suit targets Texas law requiring election of a state district judge from a district no smaller than the county, the geographical area of its jurisdiction.
After a bench trial, the district court found violations of the Voting Rights Act in each of the nine counties, but rejected the constitutional arguments, finding that plaintiffs had failed to prove that the electoral system was instituted or maintained with discriminatory intent. On January 2, 1990, the district court enjoined defendants from:
Calling, holding, supervising and certifying elections for state district judges in Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, Jefferson, Lubbock, Hector and Midland Counties under the current at-large system with an order for interim relief.
The district court divided the nine counties into electoral subdistricts, tracing the districts of state representatives and the precinct lines of County Commissioners or Justices of the Peace. The district court's order affected 115 of the 172 district courts. The district court also ordered a non-partisan election for May 5, 1990, with any run-off to be held on June 2, 1990. We stayed the district court's order pending this appeal.
Defendants first argue that the Voting Rights Act as amended in 1982 has no application to the election of judges. This argument rests on the assertion that the use by Congress of the word "representatives" in section 2(b), added by amendment in 1982 and popularly known as the Dole compromise, unambiguously excluded elected judges because elected judges are not representatives. This argument in its broadest form--section 2(b) of the Act has no application to any judicial elections--was rejected by this court in Chisom v. Edwards, 839 F.2d 1056 (5th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Roemer v. Chisom, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 390, 102 L.Ed.2d 379 (1988). Relatedly, but with less sweep, defendants argue that section 2(b) has no application to state district judges because such judges do their judging singly and not as part of a collegial body. Finally, defendants attack the findings below as well as the ordered remedy. In addition to quarrels with the sufficiency of proof that the votes of minorities were diluted, defendants argue that the findings are flawed by the erroneous legal conclusion that the contribution of partisan voting to election outcomes is not relevant.
This panel is, of course, bound by the earlier panel decision in Chisom. Nonetheless, we discuss at some length its holding that Section 2 applies to judicial elections because it is relevant to the issue we do decide with respect to trial judges and because we are persuaded that Chisom other contentions.
It is vigorously argued that section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has no application to judicial elections because judges are not representatives. The argument in its strongest form is that the word "representatives," found in section 2(b), unambiguously excludes judges because judges have no constituents. The argument continues that there is no occasion for exploring legislative history because the inquiry ends with the plain words of the statute. It is conceded that the language of section 2(b) is largely drawn from White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 L.Ed.2d 314 (1973), except that it substituted the word "representatives" for "legislators," at the least to insure it reached elected executive officials. Defendants argue that although "representatives" may encompass executive officials, the term does not encompass judges. It is implicit that to be unambiguously inapplicable to judges, the word must be certain of only one relevant meaning and that meaning must exclude judges. That is, the relevant difference between elected judges and other representatives must be universally plain. Defendants must concede, however, that at one level of generality judges are representatives. The history of electing judges and the political impulses behind that choice are powerful evidence of considered decisions to keep judges sensitive to the concerns of the people and responsive to their changing will, an endeavor hardly antithetical to common law courts. As we will explain, this reality belies the bold assertion that judges are in no sense representatives.
While the Framers of the Constitution might not have viewed appointed judges as "representatives" like legislators or executive officials, we are pointed to no evidence of the Framers views on the status of elected judges, an unfamiliar phenomenon. This is not surprising. Judges were not elected at the time the Constitution was written and ratified. The thirteen original states employed various methods of judicial selection, seven using appointment by the legislature, five by governor and council, and one by governor and legislature. See Winters, Selection of Judges--an Historical Introduction, 44 Tex.L.Rev. 1081, 1082 (1966). Texas became the first new state to adopt the federal method of selecting judges, by executive appointment with confirmation by the state senate. It did so when it joined the United States in 1845. Id.; Tex. Const. art. IV., Sec. 5 (1845). Electing judges was a reform measure aimed at making judicial selection more democratic.
Popular sovereignty and popular control of public affairs through the elective system were hallmarks of the Jacksonian era, and, not surprisingly, the movement for popular election of judges dates from this period. Dissatisfaction with the judiciary was widespread among Jacksonians. It arose from several factors including a general disaffection with the legal profession, abuses in the judicial appointment systems, and a feeling, carried over from the Jeffersonian period, that the courts were basically undemocratic....
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
League of United Latin American Citizens, Council No. 4434 v. Clements
...concluded that electing district judges in county-wide elections in Texas did not violate § 2. League of United Latin American Citizens v. Clements, 902 F.2d 293 (5th Cir.1990) ("LULAC I"). We considered the history of judicial elections in Texas and the office of district judge--the court ......
- League of United Latin American Citizens, Council No. 4434 v. Clements
-
Johnson v. Mortham
...commands of the Equal Protection Clause."); League of United Latin Am. Citizens, Council No. 4434 v. Clements ("LULAC I"), 902 F.2d 293, 321 (5th Cir.1990) (Johnson, J., dissenting) ("Because reapportionment is primarily a matter for legislative consideration, the doctrine of judicial defer......
-
League of United Latin American Citizens Council No. 4434 v. Clements
...judges. Facts and Procedural History The underlying facts of this appeal are carefully and correctly set out in the panel opinion, 902 F.2d 293 (5th Cir.1990); we recapitulate them here no further than is necessary to an understanding of what we write Plaintiffs attacked the Texas laws prov......