Chisom v. Roemer United States v. Roemer

• Decision Date: 20 June 1991
• Docket Number: Nos. 90-757 and 90-1032,s. 90-757 and 90-1032
• Citation: 501 U.S. 380,115 L.Ed.2d 348,111 S.Ct. 2354
• Parties: Ronald CHISOM, et al., Petitioners, v. Charles E. ROEMER, Governor of Louisiana, et al. UNITED STATES, Petitioner, v. Charles E. ROEMER, Governor of Louisiana, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

501 U.S. 380

111 S.Ct. 2354

115 L.Ed.2d 348

Ronald CHISOM, et al., Petitioners,

v Charles E. ROEMER, Governor of Louisiana, et al.

UNITED STATES, Petitioner,

v. Charles E. ROEMER, Governor of Louisiana, et al.

Nos. 90-757 and 90-1032.

Argued April 12, 1991.

Decided June 20, 1991.

Syllabus

The Louisiana Supreme Court consists of seven members, two of whom are elected at-large from one multimember district, with the remainder elected from single-member districts. Petitioners in No. 90-757 represent a class of black registered voters in Orleans Parish, which is the largest of the four parishes in the multimember district and contains about half of the district's registered voters. Although more than one-half of Orleans Parish's registered voters are black, over three-fourths of the voters in the other three parishes are white. Petitioners filed an action in the District Court against respondents, the Governor and state officials, alleging that the method of electing justices from their district impermissibly dilutes minority voting strength in violation of, inter alia, § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As amended in 1982, § 2(a) prohibits the imposition of a voting qualification or prerequisite or standard, practice, or procedure that "results in a denial or abridgement of the right . . . to vote on account of race or color," and § 2(b) states that the test for determining the legality of such a practice is whether, "based on the totality of circumstances," minority voters "have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." (Emphasis added.) The United States, petitioner in No. 90-1032, subsequently intervened to support petitioners' claims, and the District Court ultimately ruled against petitioners on the merits. However, the Court of Appeals finally remanded the case with directions to dismiss the complaint in light of its earlier en banc decision in League of United Latin American Citizens Council No. 4434 v. Clements, 914 F.2d 620 (LULAC), that judicial elections are not covered under § 2 of the Act as amended. There, the court distinguished between claims involving the opportunity to participate in the political process and claims involving the opportunity to elect representatives of minority voters' choice, holding that § 2 applied to judicial elections with respect to claims in the first category, but that because judges are not "representatives," the use of that term excludes judicial elections from claims in the second category.

Held: Judicial elections are covered by § 2 as amended. Pp. 391-404.

(a) As originally enacted, § 2 was coextensive with the Fifteenth Amendment, and it is undisputed that it applied to judicial elections. The 1982 amendment expanded § 2's protection by adopting a results test, thus eliminating the requirement that proof of discriminatory intent is necessary to prove a § 2 violation, and by adding § 2(b), which provides guidance about how to apply that test. Had Congress also intended to exclude judicial elections, it would have made its intent explicit in the statute or identified or mentioned it in the amendment's unusually extensive legislative history. Pp. 391-396.

(b) The results test is applicable to all § 2 claims. The statutory text and this Court's cases foreclose LULAC § reading of § 2. If the word "representatives" placed a limit on § 2's coverage for judicial elections, it would exclude all claims involving such elections, for the statute requires that all claims must allege an abridgement of the opportunity both to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of one's choice. Thus, rather than creating two separate and distinct rights, the statute identifies two inextricably linked elements of a plaintiff's burden of proof. See, e.g., White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 L.Ed.2d 314. Pp. 396-398.

(c) The word "representatives" describes the winners of representative, popular elections, including elected judges. Although LULAC correctly noted that judges need not be elected, when they are, it seems both reasonable and realistic to characterize the winners as representatives of the districts in which they reside and run. The legislative history provides no support for the arguments that the term "representatives" includes only legislative and executive officials or that Congress would have chosen the word "candidates" had it intended to apply the vote dilution prohibition to judicial elections. Pp. 398-401.

(d) Adopting respondents' view of coverage would lead to the anomalous result that a State covered by § 5 of the Act would be precluded from implementing a new voting procedure having discriminatory effects with respect to judicial elections, Clark v. Roemer, 500 U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 2096, --- L.Ed.2d ----, but a similarly discriminatory system already in place could not be challenged under § 2. Pp. 401-402.

(e) That the one-person, one-vote rule is inapplicable to judicial elections, Wells v.Edwards, 409 U.S. 1095, 93 S.Ct. 904, 34 L.Ed.2d 679, does not mean that judicial elections are entirely immune from vote dilution claims. Wells rejected a constitutional claim and, thus, has no relevance to a correct interpretation of this statute, which was enacted to provide additional pro- tection for voting rights not adequately protected by the Constitution itself. Cf. City of Rome v. United States, 446 U.S. 156, 172-183, 100 S.Ct. 1548, 1559-1565, 64 L.Ed.2d 119. Pp. 402-403.

917 F.2d 187 (C.A.5, 1990), reversed and remanded.

STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, O'CONNOR, and SOUTER, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and KENNEDY, J., joined. KENNEDY, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr, Washington, D.C., for petitioner U.S.

Pamela S. Karlan, Charlottesville, Va., for petitioners Ronald Chisom, et al.

Robert G. Pugh, Shreveport, La., for respondents.

Justice STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

The preamble to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 establishes that the central purpose of the Act is "[t]o enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States." ¹ The Fifteenth Amendment provides:

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." U.S. Const., Amdt. 15, § 1.

In 1982, Congress amended § 2 of the Voting Rights Act ² to make clear that certain practices and procedures that result in the denial or abridgement of the right to vote are forbidden even though the absence of proof of discriminatory intent protects them from constitutional challenge. The question presented by this case is whether this "results test" protects the right to vote in state judicial elections. We hold that the coverage provided by the 1982 amendment is coextensive with the coverage provided by the Act prior to 1982 and that judicial elections are embraced within that coverage.

I

Petitioners in No. 90-757 represent a class of approximately 135,000 black registered voters in Orleans Parish, Louisiana. App. 6-7, 13. They brought this action against the Governor and other state officials (respondents) to challenge the method of electing justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court from the New Orleans area. The United States, petitioner in No. 90-1032, intervened to support the claims advanced by the plaintiff class.

The Louisiana Supreme Court consists of seven justices,³ five of whom are elected from five single-member Supreme Court Districts, and two of whom are elected from one multi-member Supreme Court District.⁴ Each of the seven members of the court must be a resident of the district from which he or she is elected and must have resided there for at least two years prior to election. App. to Pet. for Cert. 7a. Each of the justices on the Louisiana Supreme Court serves a term of 10 years.⁵ The one multimember district, the First Supreme Court District, consists of the parishes of Orleans, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, and Jefferson.⁶ Orleans Parish contains about half of the population of the First Supreme Court District and about half of the registered voters in that district. Chisom v. Edwards, 839 F.2d 1056, 1057 (CA5 1988). More than one-half of the registered voters of Orleans Parish are black, whereas more than three-fourths of the registered voters in the other three parishes are white. App. 8.

Petitioners allege that "the present method of electing two Justices to the Louisiana Supreme Court at-large from the New Orleans area impermissibly dilutes minority voting strength" in violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Id., at 9. Furthermore, petitioners claimed in the courts below that the current electoral system within the First Supreme Court District violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution because the purpose and effect of this election practice "is to dilute, minimize, and cancel the voting strength" of black voters in Orleans Parish. Ibid. Petitioners seek a remedy that would divide the First District into two districts, one for Orleans Parish and the second for the other three parishes. If this remedy were adopted, the seven members of the Louisiana Supreme Court would each represent a separate single-member judicial district, and each of the two new districts would have approximately the same population. Id., at 8. According to petitioners, the new Orleans Parish district would also have a majority black population and majority black voter registration. Id., at 8, 47.

The District Court granted respondents' motion to dismiss the complaint. Chisom v. Edwards, 659 F.Supp. 183 (ED La.1987). It held that the constitutional claims were insufficient because the complaint did not adequately allege a specific intent to...