Lucas v. Townsend, 92-8198

• Decision Date: 04 August 1992
• Docket Number: No. 92-8198,92-8198
• Citation: 967 F.2d 549
• Parties: 76 Ed. Law Rep. 28 David LUCAS, Willie Davis, Jr., Connie Cater, Corlis McKenzie, Ronnie T. Miley, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Judy TOWNSEND, In her official capacity as President of the Bibb County Board of Education, Bibb County Board of Education, Emory Greene, in his official capacity as Chairman of the Bibb County Board of Commissioners, Bibb County Board of Commissioners, Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections, Bernard Fletcher, in his official capacity as Supt., Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections, A.B. Caldwell, a/k/a Tony Caldwell, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 549

967 F.2d 549

76 Ed. Law Rep. 28

David LUCAS, Willie Davis, Jr., Connie Cater, Corlis McKenzie, Ronnie T. Miley, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Judy TOWNSEND, In her official capacity as President of the Bibb County Board of Education, Bibb County Board of Education, Emory Greene, in his official capacity as Chairman of the Bibb County Board of Commissioners, Bibb County Board of Commissioners, Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections, Bernard Fletcher, in his official capacity as Supt., Macon-Bibb County Board of Elections, A.B. Caldwell a/k/a Tony Caldwell, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 92-8198.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 4, 1992.

Neil Bradley, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Inc., Laughlin McDonald, Kathleen Wilde, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Frank C. Jones, Charles K. McKnight, Jr., King & Spalding, Atlanta, Ga., W. Warren Plowden, Jr., Jones, Cork & Miller, Edward S. Sell, Jr., Sell & Melton, Macon, Ga., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

Before EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge, RONEY ^*, and GIBSON ^**, Senior Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

The events relevant to this appeal began in 1987 when the Bibb County Board of Education (the Board) began planning to call for a school bond referendum to provide funds to build a new high school and middle school and to air condition existing school buildings. The facts and procedural history of this case are set forth more fully in our vacated opinion at 908 F.2d 851, 852-54 (11th Cir.1990).

The Board considered submitting the issues as separate questions to be voted on individually. It also considered holding the referendum on Super Tuesday, March 8, 1988, the date of the presidential primary in which Jesse Jackson was a candidate. Ultimately, however, the Board decided to submit the bond issue to the electorate as a single question during the November 8, 1988, general election.

Plaintiffs, representing black citizens, have challenged the Board's actions as a violation of the First, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Plaintiffs' Section 2 claim has previously been before this Court when we held that the Board's actions did constitute a standard, practice, or procedure under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Lucas v. Townsend, 908 F.2d 851 (11th Cir.1990). The United States Supreme Court vacated our opinion, however, and remanded for a determination of whether appellate jurisdiction was proper in light of possible outstanding constitutional claims that had not been decided by the district court. Board of Public Education and Orphanage for Bibb County v. Lucas, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 2845, 115 L.Ed.2d 1013 (1991).

Upon being advised by the district court that plaintiffs' constitutional claims remained to be decided, we remanded to the district court for resolution of those claims. Lucas v. Townsend, 943 F.2d 38 (11th Cir.1991). The district court held an evidentiary hearing and entered written findings of fact and conclusions of law on January 23, 1992. The court rested on its prior rejection of plaintiffs' Section 2 claims, and further determined that plaintiffs failed to prove their claims of constitutional violations. Lucas v. Townsend, 783 F.Supp. 605, 619 (M.D.Ga.1992).

Based upon the conclusion that the district court's findings of fact control the outcome of this case and are not clearly erroneous, we affirm the judgment for the defendants.

To prevail on their claims of violations of the Fifteenth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, plaintiffs had to prove first that vote dilution, as a special form of discriminatory effect, exists and second, that it results from a racially discriminatory purpose chargeable to the state. See Washington v. Finlay, 664 F.2d 913, 919 (4th Cir.1981), cert. denied 457 U.S. 1120, 102 S.Ct. 2933, 73 L.Ed.2d 1333 (1982).

After examining the evidence, briefs, and arguments of the parties, the district court found that plaintiffs

failed to show any such adverse or discriminatory effects with respect to their claim that racial polarization infects voting on referenda in Bibb County. They have not pointed to any other evidence which they contend shows any adverse impact against blacks with respect to the timing or content of the November 8 bond election. Neither have they offered evidence that any person who wanted to vote for or against the referendum was denied or inhibited in any way in casting his ballot.

Lucas v. Townsend, 783 F.Supp. 605, 619 (M.D.Ga.1992). We review the findings of the district court only for clear error, Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 78-79, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 2781, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986), affording special deference to the district court due to its "special vantage point" and ability to conduct an "intensely local appraisal of the design and impact of" a voting system. White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 769, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 2341, 37 L.Ed.2d 314 (1973).

The district court carefully analyzed the evidence concerning polarized voting and concluded that plaintiffs failed to meet the standard enunciated by their expert. This failure was fatal to their claim of discriminatory effect. Absent a showing of racially polarized voting, the challenged practice does not affect minority voting rights and cannot cause a discriminatory result. See Gingles, 478 U.S. at 48-49 n. 15, 50-51, 106 S.Ct. at 2765 n. 15, 2766 (racially polarized voting is one of the most important factors a Section 2 plaintiff must establish).

The court considered the testimony of Dr. Michael Binford, who testified for plaintiffs in an effort to show that voting in Bibb County is racially polarized. Dr. Binford set forth three criteria necessary to show racially polarized voting: (1) a strong correlation coefficient between voting behavior and the racial composition of the electorate, (2) a majority of white voters must vote in one direction or for one candidate while a majority of black voters vote in the other direction, and (3) it must be difficult or impossible for the minority population to win an election in an at-large contest.

The district court accepted Dr. Binford's expert conclusion that racially polarized voting existed in Bibb County candidate elections. The court ruled that evidence of racially polarized voting in candidate elections, however, does not demonstrate racially polarized voting in non-candidate elections such as the bond referendum. The district court considered Dr. Binford's affidavit stating that while the correlation between the racial composition of a precinct and the vote for black and white candidates is very clear and strong, candidate and referenda elections are not readily interchangeable. Dr. Binford stated that "[v]oting in referenda is often a more complex process than voting for candidates in office. The issues are usually more complex and policy positions of the electorate may be influenced by a variety of factors." Indeed, Dr. Binford conceded that in analyzing the 1988 school bond referendum, "it is impossible to ascertain the impact of a number of additional factors, such as having school age children in a voter's family, on the voting behavior of a precinct."

Plaintiffs assert that the district court erred in refusing to equate candidate and referenda elections for purposes of determining whether plaintiffs had made a showing of racially polarized voting. Plaintiffs contend that this requirement was satisfied through their showing of polarized candidate elections and testimony indicating that race is a factor in Bibb County elections. We reject this argument. Drawing valid inferences and conclusions about voter behavior from statistics requires the selection of relevant elections for analysis. As Dr. Binford noted, candidate and referenda elections are not readily interchangeable since factors other than race can weigh differently in the two types of elections. Thus, it was appropriate for the district court to analyze only referenda elections in determining whether plaintiffs had proved racially polarized voting.

The district court applied Dr. Binsford's three criteria and concluded that plaintiffs failed to prove racially polarized voting in Bibb County referenda generally or in the November 1988 referendum.

Dr. Binford analyzed a total of 30 candidate races and two referenda. He calculated a correlation coefficient, represented as "R," to determine the relationship between the result for a particular candidate or proposition and the racial composition of the voters who turned out for the election. R is then squared to yield "R ²," which is a measure of how much of the variation in the vote can be statistically accounted for by the racial composition of the electorate. Dr. Binford testified that a correlation coefficient of .7 or greater would be considered "strong." Any correlation coefficient of less than .7 would not be strong because over 51% of the variance between white and black voting would not be attributable to the race of the voters.

In his initial affidavit, Dr. Binford analyzed two referenda (the 1988 school bond issue and the 1988 sales tax proposal) and 13 candidate elections. The racial composition of the precincts explained only 44% of the variance in voting on the school bond referendum and 46% of the variance on the sales tax referendum. In contrast, in every candidate election analyzed, at least 84% of the variance was explained by race. In 10 of those candidate elections more than 95% of the variance in precinct voting was explained by the racial makeup of the precinct.

In his second affidavit, Dr. Binford examined an additional 17 candidate elections. The R ² values for each of the 15 candidate elections for which he obtained statistically significant results was higher than the R ² for the 1988 school bond referendum, indicating that the race...