Ga. State Conference of the Naacp v. Fayette Cnty. Bd. of Comm'rs

• Citation: 950 F.Supp.2d 1294
• Decision Date: 21 May 2013
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 3:11–cv–123–TCB.
• Parties: GEORGIA STATE CONFERENCE OF the NAACP, et al., Plaintiffs, v. FAYETTE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

950 F.Supp.2d 1294

GEORGIA STATE CONFERENCE OF the NAACP, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.FAYETTE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 3:11–cv–123–TCB.

United States District Court,

N.D. Georgia,

Newnan Division.

May 21, 2013.

Leah C. Aden, Natasha Korgaonkar, Ryan P. Haygood, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., New York, NY, Neil T. Bradley, Law Office of Neil Bradley, Avondale Estates, GA, for Plaintiffs.

Anne Ware Lewis, Bryan P. Tyson, Frank B. Strickland, Strickland Brockington Lewis, LLP, Atlanta, GA, Phillip L. Hartley, Harben, Hartley & Hawkins, LLP, Gainesville, GA, for Defendants.

ORDER

TIMOTHY C. BATTEN, SR., District Judge.

Plaintiffs, who include the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, the Fayette County Branch of the NAACP, and individuals who are African–American registered voters residing in Fayette County, claim that Fayette County's at-large method of electing members to the Fayette County Board of Commissioners (“BOC”) and Board of Education (“BOE”) violates § 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, because the current voting scheme essentially guarantees that no African–American will be elected to either board. As an alternative to at-large voting, Plaintiffs submit a single-member districting plan, which they contend will provide African–Americans the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice to both boards. The County Defendants ¹ oppose Plaintiffs' proffered plan, arguing that the current election system does not violate § 2. Before the Court are the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment [108 & 110].

I. BackgroundA. Legal Standard for Establishing a Violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as amended, provides that no “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.” 42 U.S.C. § 1973(a). A violation of § 2 is established “if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that ... [members of the minority group] have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” Id. § 1973(b).² While explaining that “[t]he 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” in evaluating an alleged violation, subsection (b) cautions 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.” Id.

“Passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was an important step in the struggle to end discriminatory treatment of minorities who seek to exercise one of the most fundamental rights of our citizens: the right to vote.” Bartlett v. Strickland, 556 U.S. 1, 10, 129 S.Ct. 1231, 173 L.Ed.2d 173 (2009). “The essence of a § 2 claim is that a certain electoral law, practice, or structure interacts with social and historical conditions to cause an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by black and white voters to elect their preferred representatives.” Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 47, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986). The Supreme Court has “long recognized” that at-large voting schemes have the potential to “operate to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of racial minorities in the voting population.” Id. (internal punctuation omitted) (citing cases). “The theoretical basis for this type of impairment is that where minority and majority voters consistently prefer different candidates, the majority, by virtue of its numerical superiority, will regularly defeat the choices of minority voters.” Id.

In Gingles, the Court held that to establish a claim of actionable vote dilution under § 2, plaintiffs must establish three “necessary preconditions”: (1) the minority group must be “sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district,” (2) the minority group must be “politically cohesive,” and (3) the majority must vote “sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate.” Id. at 50–51, 106 S.Ct. 2752.

Once these preconditions are established, “the court considers whether, ‘on the totality of circumstances,’ minorities have been denied an ‘equal opportunity’ to ‘participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.’ ” Abrams v. Johnson, 521 U.S. 74, 91, 117 S.Ct. 1925, 138 L.Ed.2d 285 (1997) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b)). Judicial assessment of the totality of the circumstances requires a “searching practical evaluation of the ‘past and present reality.’ ” Gingles, 478 U.S. at 45, 106 S.Ct. 2752. The key to this inquiry is an examination of the seven principal factors set forth in the Senate Judiciary Committee Report accompanying the 1982 amendments to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the so-called “Senate factors.” Id. at 44–45, 106 S.Ct. 2752 (citing S. Rep. No. 97–417 at 28–29 (1982), 1982 U.S.C.C.A.N. 177, 206–07 (the “Senate Report”)). Those factors are:

1. the extent of any history of official discrimination in the state or political subdivision that touched the right of members of the minority group to register, vote, or otherwise to participate in the Democratic process;

2. the extent to which voting in the elections of the state or political subdivision is racially polarized;

3. the extent to which the state or political subdivision has used unusually large election districts, majority vote requirements, anti-single shot provisions, or other voting practices or procedures that may enhance the opportunity for discrimination against the minority group;

4. if there is a candidate slating process, whether the members of the minority group have been denied access to that process;

5. the extent to which members of the minority group in the state or political subdivision bear the effects of discrimination in such areas as education, employment and health, which hinder the ability to participate effectively in the political process;

6. whether political campaigns have been characterized by overt or subtle racial appeals; [and]

7. the extent to which members of the minority group have been elected to public office in the jurisdiction.

Id. The Senate Report adds two other considerations that may have probative value in vote-dilution cases, specifically:

1. whether there is a significant lack of responsiveness on the part of the elected officials to the particularized needs of the members of the minority group; and

2. whether the policy underlying the state or political subdivision's use of such voting qualification, prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice or procedure is tenuous.

Id. The list of factors is “neither comprehensive nor exclusive.” Id. Plaintiffs need not prove a majority of these factors, nor even any particular number of them in order to sustain their claims. Instead, “these factors are simply guideposts in a broad-based inquiry in which district judges are expected to roll up their sleeves and examine all aspects of the past and present political environment in which the challenged electoral practice is used.” Goosby v. Hempstead, N.Y., 956 F.Supp. 326, 331 (E.D.N.Y.1997).

B. Procedural Background

On August 9, 2011, Plaintiffs brought this action against the BOE and its members (collectively the “School Board Defendants”) and the County Defendants, who include the BOC, its members,³ the Fayette County Board of Elections and Voter Registration and its department head.⁴Plaintiffs' sole claim is that Fayette County's at-large method of electing members to the BOC and BOE dilutes African–American voting strength, resulting in African–American voters being denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice, in violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Shortly after both sets of Defendants filed their answers, Plaintiffs and the School Board Defendants reached a settlement in this case. Subsequently, on February 20, 2012, Plaintiffs and the School Board Defendants filed a motion for approval of their proposed consent decree and entry of final judgment. ⁵ The County Defendants opposed the consent decree, arguing that the remedy to which Plaintiffs and the School Board Defendants agreed is not authorized by law. The Court ordered the parties to brief specific issues regarding the proposed decree and scheduled a hearing on the matter.

On May 2, 2012, Plaintiffs and the School Board Defendants submitted an amended proposed consent decree. In that consent decree, Plaintiffs and the School Board Defendants relied upon a plan that they refer to as the Illustrative Plan to fulfill Gingles's first precondition that the minority group must be “sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district.” The Illustrative Plan creates a majority-minority district with voters who report as “any part black” constituting 50.22% of voting individuals. However, that plan was not the one the consenting parties proffered as a remedy for the alleged § 2 violation. Instead of the Illustrative Plan, the consenting parties sought to have the Court order the County to adopt what the parties refer to as the BOE Plan. That plan creates a district with an African–American voting-age population of only 46.2%. The County Defendants argued that the Illustrative Plan could not meet the first Gingles precondition because it constituted a racial gerrymander, and that the BOE Plan was not a permissible remedy because African–American voters did not comprise more than 50% of the voters in that district.

On May 30, 2012, the Court held a hearing in which it heard argument from all parties regarding the proposed amended consent...