Ala. Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama
| Decision Date | 26 December 2012 |
| Docket Number | CASE NO. 2:12-CV-691,CASE NO. 2:12-CV-1081 |
| Parties | ALABAMA LEGISLATIVE BLACK CAUCUS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. THE STATE OF ALABAMA, et al., Defendants. DEMETRIUS NEWTON, et al., Plaintiffs, v. THE STATE OF ALABAMA, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama |
(Three-Judge Court)
Pending before this three-judge court are three motions filed in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus, et al. v. Alabama, no. 2:12-cv-691, before its consolidation with Newton v. Alabama, no. 2:12-cv-1081. The first is a motion for partial summary judgment and for preliminary and permanent injunction (Doc. # 7) filed by the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus, Bobby Singleton, Alabama Association of Black County Officials, Fred Armstead, George Bowman, RhondelRhone, Albert F. Turner Jr., and Jiles Williams Jr. The second is a motion for judgment on the pleadings (Doc. # 29) filed by the State of Alabama and Beth Chapman in her official capacity. The third is an oral motion made at a hearing on the first two motions where the Black Caucus moved for leave to amend count three of its complaint.
These three motions are now ripe for our decision. We deny the motion for partial summary judgment and for preliminary and permanent injunction filed by the Black Caucus and grant the motion for judgment on the pleadings filed by the State defendants as to count one of the complaint filed by the Black Caucus. We deny the motion for judgment on the pleadings as to count two of the complaint filed by the Black Caucus. We also dismiss without prejudice and grant the Black Caucus leave to amend count three of its complaint.
This matter arises from the decennial redistricting of the Alabama Legislature. A special session of the Alabama Legislature convened to establish new districts for the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Joint Legislative Reapportionment Committee established guidelines that restricted population deviations in the new districts to two percent. On May 31, 2012, Governor Robert Bentley signed into law Acts 2012-602 and 2012-603, which established the new districts.
After Governor Bentley signed the Acts, the Black Caucus filed a complaint against the State of Alabama and Beth Chapman, in her official capacity as the Secretary of State of Alabama. That complaint asserted three counts: violation of the guarantee of one-person, one-vote under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Const. Amend. XIV, § 2; dilution and isolation of the strength of black votes in violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Const. Amend. XIV, and the Fifteenth Amendment, U.S. Const. Amend. XV; and partisan gerrymandering in violation of the First Amendment, U.S. Const. Amend. I. The Black Caucus moved for partial summary judgment and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief on count one of its complaint.
The State defendants moved to dismiss or, in the alternative, to stay the action until Attorney General Luther Strange obtained either administrative or judicial preclearance of the new districts under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c. We granted the motion of the State defendants to stay the matter until either the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, or the United States District Court for the District of Columbia decided whether to preclear the districts. After Attorney General Holder precleared the new districts, we lifted the stay of the action and denied the motion to dismiss filed by the Statedefendants. The State defendants then filed an answer to the complaint and a motion for judgment on the pleadings with respect to all three counts.
After the hearing on the latter motions, another complaint was filed about the new districts. Demetrius Newton, the Alabama Democratic Conference, Stacey Stallworth, Framon Weaver Sr., Rosa Toussaint, and Lynn Pettway filed a complaint against the State of Alabama; Robert Bentley, in his official capacity as the Governor of Alabama; and Beth Chapman, in her official capacity as the Secretary of State of Alabama. The Newton plaintiffs asserted three counts in their complaint: violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act; racial gerrymandering in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments; and violations of constitutional and statutory rights under the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. After the Newton action was assigned to this three-judge court, we determined that the Black Caucus action and the Newton action involve common questions of law and fact and consolidated them to avoid unnecessary repetition and confusion. See Fed R. Civ. P. 42(a)(2). The State defendants have not yet been served or appeared in the second action.
A judgment on the pleadings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c) is to be granted only "when no issues of material fact exist, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law based on the substance of the pleadings andany judicially noticed facts." Cunningham v. Dist. Att'y's Office for Escambia Cnty., 592 F.3d 1237, 1255 (11th Cir. 2010) (quoting Andrx Pharm., Inc. v. Elan Corp., 421 F.3d 1227, 1232-33 (11th Cir. 2005)). "We must accept the facts alleged in the complaint as true and view them in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party." Cannon v. City of W. Palm Beach, 250 F.3d 1299, 1301 (11th Cir. 2001). And a summary judgment is to be granted only "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
In count one of its complaint, the Black Caucus contends that the new districts violate the guarantee of one-person, one-vote under the Fourteenth Amendment, but its complaint fails to allege facts to support this claim for relief. The complaint filed by the Black Caucus alleges that, because the Legislature chose to maintain population deviations at below two percent, "[the districts] violate the one-person, one-vote requirement of the Equal Protection Clause by restricting allowable population deviations more than is practicable to comply with the whole-county provisions in the Alabama Constitution and by failing to comply with those whole-county provisions to the extent practicable." See Ala. Const. Art. IX, §§ 198-200. In other words, the complaint filed by the Black Caucus alleges that the new districts have too little deviation in population equality in violation ofthe state constitution. Nothing in these allegations suggests that the new districts violate the guarantee of one-person, one-vote under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The odd complaint of the Black Caucus that the new districts are too equal in population fails to address a concern of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court has explained that "the fundamental principle of representative government in this country is one of equal representation for equal numbers of people, without regard to race, sex, economic status, or place of residence within a State." Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 560-61, 84 S. Ct. 1362, 1381 (1964). For that reason, "the Equal Protection Clause requires both houses of a state legislature to be apportioned on a population basis." Id. at 576, 84 S. Ct. at 1389. The Fourteenth Amendment required Alabama to "make an honest and good faith effort to construct districts, in both houses of its legislature, as nearly of equal population as is practicable." Id. at 577, 84 S. Ct. at 1390. State legislatures have some flexibility in the creation of new districts, see id. at 578, 84 S. Ct. at 1390, and "an apportionment plan with a maximum population deviation under 10% falls within [the] category of minor deviations" that "are insufficient to make out a prima facie case of invidious discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment so as to require justification by the State," Brown v. Thomson, 462 U.S. 835, 842, 103 S. Ct. 2690, 2696 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The pleadings establish a presumption that the new districts satisfy the guarantee of one-person, one-vote, and the complaint filed by the Black Caucus alleges no facts to rebut that presumption. Because a deviation in population equality of even as much as ten percent is "considered to be of prima facie constitutional validity," see Connor v. Finch, 431 U.S. 407, 418, 97 S. Ct. 1828, 1835 (1977); see also Brown, 462 U.S. at 842, 103 S. Ct. at 2696, a deviation of less than two percent in population equality, as the complaint filed by the Black Caucus alleges, easily establishes a presumption that the new districts satisfy the guarantee of one-person, one-vote. The Black Caucus fails to rebut that presumption when it complains that the new districts have too much equality in population.
To the extent that the complaint filed by the Black Caucus alleges that state officials violated state law, we lack subject-matter jurisdiction to consider it. See Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 117, 104 S. Ct. 900, 917 (1984). The Supreme Court has held that "a federal suit against state officials on the basis of state law contravenes the Eleventh Amendment when . . . the relief sought and ordered has an impact directly on the State itself." Id. "The Eleventh Amendment acts as a jurisdictional bar," see Doe v. Moore, 410 F.3d 1337, 1349 (11th Cir. 2005), so we "cannot proceed at all in any cause," see Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 506, 514 (1869).
The Black Caucus interprets Sims v. Baggett, 247 F. Supp. 96 (M.D. Ala. 1965), to render the whole-county provisions of the Alabama Constitution enforceable as a matter of federal law, but that decision stands for no such proposition. When it addressed the whole-county provisions of the Alabama...
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