Hall v. Virginia

Decision Date22 September 2004
Docket NumberNo. 03-2113.,03-2113.
PartiesJoan HALL; Richard Pruitt; Thomasina Pruitt; Vivian Curry; Eunice Mcmillan; James Speller; Robbie Garnes; Leslie Speight, Plaintiffs-Appellants, and Elijah Sharpe, Plaintiff, v. Commonwealth of VIRGINIA; Jean Jensen, Secretary, State Board of Elections, in her official capacity; Jerry W. Kilgore, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia; GARY Thompson; Charles Brown; James Brown; James Alfred Carey; Evelyn Chandler; Clifton E. Hayes, Jr.; Quentin E. Hicks; Irene Hurst; Wayne Osmore, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Henry Coke Morgan, Jr., J.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

ARGUED:

J. Gerald Hebert, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellants. Michael A. Carvin, Jones Day, Washington, D.C.; Edward Meade Macon, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Office Of The Attorney General Of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees.

ON BRIEF:

Donald L. Morgan, Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, Washington, D.C.; Anita S. Earls, Unccenter For Civil Rights, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for Appellants. Jerry W. Kilgore, Attorney General of Virginia, Judith Williams Jagdmann, Deputy Attorney General, James C. Stuchell, Assistant Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia; Louis K. Fisher, Shay Dvoretzky, Cody R. Smith, Jones Day, Washington, D.C., for Appellees.

Before NIEMEYER, SHEDD, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Duncan wrote the opinion, in which Judge Niemeyer and Judge Shedd joined.

OPINION

DUNCAN, Circuit Judge:

At issue in this lawsuit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 439 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. § 1973 (2003)), is whether minority plaintiffs, who are not sufficiently numerous to form a voting majority in any single-member district in the Commonwealth of Virginia, may nevertheless claim that a legislative redistricting plan denies minority voters an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. The district court dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not satisfy the requirement established in Thornburg v. Gingles that a minority group seeking relief under Section 2 "demonstrate that it is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district." 478 U.S. 30, 50, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986). Because we agree that Gingles establishes a numerical majority requirement for all Section 2 claims, we affirm the order of the district court dismissing the complaint with prejudice.

I.

On June 19, 2001, the Commonwealth held a special election for the United States House of Representatives seat in the Fourth Congressional District. The seat had become vacant on account of the death of longtime Democratic Representative Norman Sisisky on March 29, 2001. In the special election, Republican Randy Forbes defeated Democrat Louise Lucas to capture the Fourth District seat by a 52 to 48 percent margin.

Shortly thereafter, on July 10, 2001, the Virginia General Assembly enacted the existing congressional district plan (the "2001 Redistricting Plan") based on the results of the 2000 census.1 Relevant to this appeal, the 2001 Redistricting Plan redrew the boundaries of the Fourth District, shifting a number of black2 citizens out of the Fourth District and into the Third and Fifth Congressional Districts. Before the enactment of the 2001 Redistricting Plan, blacks formed 39.4 percent of the total population and 37.8 percent of the voting-age population in the Fourth District.3 In the reconfigured Fourth District, blacks constitute 33.6 percent of the total population and 32.3 percent of its voting-age population.

The 2001 Redistricting Plan left the total population and voting-age population figures for blacks in the Third District virtually unchanged. The Third District previously had a total black population of 57 percent and a black voting-age population of 53.3 percent. Under the new plan, blacks in the Third District comprise 56.8 percent of the total population and 53.2 percent of the voting-age population. Similarly, the total population and voting-age population statistics for blacks in the Fifth District were largely unaffected by the 2001 Redistricting Plan. Blacks constituted 24.3 percent of the total population in the Fifth District both before and after the enactment of the plan. Black voting-age population, however, saw a slight increase from 22.7 percent in the former Fifth District, to 22.8 percent in the redrawn Fifth District.4

The plaintiffs are nine registered voters who either currently reside in the Fourth District or were shifted out of the Fourth District as a result of the 2001 Redistricting Plan. On February 21, 2003, the plaintiffs filed a federal complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia alleging that the reconfiguration of the Fourth District dilutes minority voting strength in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.5 More precisely, the complaint alleges that, in the former Fourth District, blacks were sufficiently numerous to combine with white voters and thereby elect their preferred candidates to public office. The plaintiffs contend that, in the newly-drawn Fourth District, blacks are too small in number to form the same winning coalition with "crossover"6 white voters that existed before the enactment of the 2001 Redistricting Plan. The complaint further alleges that the new plan dilutes minority voting strength in the Fourth District by shifting black voters out of the Fourth and into the Third District. According to the plaintiffs, the reassignment of black voters to this already safe majority-minority district7 amounts to an unnecessary waste of black votes. As affirmative relief, the plaintiffs requested an order: (1) declaring that the 2001 Redistricting Plan dilutes minority voting strength in violation of Section 2; (2) enjoining the defendants from conducting any elections in the Fourth District under the 2001 Redistricting Plan; and (3) restoring the Fourth District to approximately 40 percent in total black population.

Relying on the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Hays, 515 U.S. 737, 115 S.Ct. 2431, 132 L.Ed.2d 635 (1995), the district court dismissed for lack of standing the seven plaintiffs who no longer reside in the Fourth District as a result of the 2001 Redistricting Plan. The Hays Court held that plaintiffs who do not live in a challenged district lack standing to claim that the district has been racially gerrymandered in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 744-45, 115 S.Ct. 2431 ("Where a plaintiff resides in a racially gerrymandered district ... the plaintiff has been denied equal treatment ... and therefore has standing to challenge the legislature's action."). Although Hays concerned a racial gerrymandering claim under the Equal Protection Clause, rather than a vote dilution claim under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the district court was persuaded that the principles of standing discussed in Hays apply equally to the seven plaintiffs in this case who do not live in the challenged district, and thus can claim no more than a"`generalized grievance against governmental conduct of which [they] do [ ] not approve.'" Hall v. Commonwealth of Va., 276 F.Supp.2d 528 531 (E.D.Va.2003) (quoting Hays, 515 U.S. at 745, 115 S.Ct. 2431). Accordingly, the district court held that only Plaintiffs Joan Hall and Leslie Speight have standing to challenge the newly-drawn Fourth District "by virtue of their residency within the Fourth District." Id. at 531-32, 115 S.Ct. 2431.

The district court ultimately dismissed the vote dilution claims of Hall and Speight on the grounds that they failed to satisfy all of the "necessary preconditions" for a Section 2 claim established by the Supreme Court in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986). The Gingles Court construed Section 2 in the context of a lawsuit claiming that the election of candidates from a multimember district8 diluted minority voting strength by submerging a cohesive racial minority group within a bloc-voting white majority. The Court held that plaintiffs challenging the use of multimember districts under Section 2 must first establish three threshold conditions. The minority group must be able to (1) "demonstrate that it is sufficiently large and compact to constitute a majority in a single member district," (2) "show that it is politically cohesive," and (3) "demonstrate that the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate." Id. at 50-51, 106 S.Ct. 2752.9

Proof of the Gingles preconditions is not alone sufficient to establish a claim of vote dilution under Section 2. "The ultimate determination of vote dilution under the Voting Rights Act still must be made on the basis of the `totality of the circumstances.'" Lewis v. Alamance County, 99 F.3d 600, 604 (4th Cir.1996) (internal quotations omitted). On the other hand, the failure of a minority group to satisfy all of the Gingles preconditions means that it cannot sustain a claim under Section 2 that the challenged electoral practice "impede[s] the ability of minority voters to elect representatives of their choice." Gingles, 478 U.S. at 48, 106 S.Ct. 2752. After analyzing the vote dilution allegations in the complaint, the district court held that Hall and Speight failed to state a claim cognizable under Section 2, since blacks would not form a population or voting-age majority in the Fourth District even if they prevailed and the Fourth District was restored to approximately 40 percent in total black population. The district court therefore dismissed the complaint with prejudice pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

On appeal, the...

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