Hays v. State of Louisiana, Civ. A. No. 92-1522.

• Citation: 862 F. Supp. 119
• Decision Date: 29 July 1994
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 92-1522.
• Parties: Ray HAYS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. STATE OF LOUISIANA, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana

862 F. Supp. 119

Ray HAYS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. STATE OF LOUISIANA, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 92-1522.

United States District Court, W.D. Louisiana, Shreveport Division.

July 29, 1994.

Jay B. McCallum, Robun & McCallum, Farmerville, LA, Thomas G. Zentner, Jr., Theus Grisham, Davis & Leigh, Monroe, LA, Paul L. Hurd, Monroe, LA, Robert Richard Gasaway, Kirkland & Ellis, Washington, DC, for Ray Hays, Edward L. Adams, Susan Shaw Singleton, Gary Stokley.

Roy A. Mongrue, Jr., Atty. General's Office, Baton Rouge, LA, for State of Louisiana, Edwin W. Edwards, Samuel B. Nunez, Jr., John A. Alario, Jr., W. Fox McKeithen, Jerry M. Fowler.

Sydney B. Nelson, Nelson & Hammons, Shreveport, LA, for Richard H. Baker, Clyde C. Holloway.

William P. Quigley, Loyola Law School Clinic, New Orleans, LA, for Bernadine St. Cyr, Calvin Wilkerson, Ed Jones, Donald Thibodeax, Patrick Fontenot, Hazel Freeman, Zelma Wyche, Janice Frazier, Ralph Wilson.

A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., New York City, for Congressional Black Caucus.

Benjamin Jones, Jones & Smith, Monroe, LA, Robert B. McDuff, Jackson, MS, J. Gerald Hebert, Lawyers Cmte for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, DC, for Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus.

William J. Flanagan, U.S. Attys. Office, Shreveport, LA, Colleen M. Kane, Matthew G. Olsen, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, DC, for U.S.

Before WIENER, Circuit Judge, SHAW, Chief District Judge, and WALTER, District Judge.

By order dated June 27, 1994, this case was remanded from the United States Supreme Court for further proceedings, ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 2731, 129 L.Ed.2d 853. For the following reasons, Act 1 of the Second Extraordinary Session of the 1994 Louisiana Legislature is null and void. The State of Louisiana is hereby enjoined from holding any future Congressional elections based upon the redistricting scheme embodied by Act 1.

I

STATE OF THE CASE

Ray Hays, Edward Adams, Susan Singleton, and Gary Stokely ("Plaintiffs") brought this suit in state court in August 1992 challenging Act 42 of 1992. The case was removed to this Court by the State of Louisiana. After one trial and an evidentiary hearing, we struck down Act 42 as an impermissible racial gerrymander violative of Plaintiffs' equal protection rights. The State of Louisiana et al. ("Defendants") pursued their appeal directly to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, during an extraordinary session, the Louisiana Legislature enacted Act 1, repealing Act 42 and creating a new Congressional redistricting scheme. Plaintiffs filed supplemental pleadings seeking to amend their complaint. The amended pleadings challenged Act 1 and sought injunctive relief. As the case was on appeal to the Supreme Court, the motions were returned unsigned for lack of jurisdiction. On June 27, 1994, the Supreme Court vacated our judgment of December 29, 1993, ___ U.S. ___, 114 S.Ct. 2731, 129 L.Ed.2d 853; remanded the case to this Court "for further consideration in light of Act 1 of the Second Extraordinary Session of the 1994 Louisiana Legislature and the parties' filings in this Court concerning Act 1." Consistent with that order, this Court permitted the previously filed amended complaint and a two-day trial was held to determine the constitutionality of Act 1.

II

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

In the interest of brevity, we reiterate and adopt by reference our December 28, 1993 opinion. Our conclusions regarding Plaintiffs' standing to bring an equal protection challenge are adopted as well. With that in mind, we make the following findings:

A

"THE ACT (1) SPEAKS FOR ITSELF"

The districting map of Louisiana, created under Act 1, reflects a racial gerrymander. Specifically the bizarre and irregular shape of District Four raises the inference that the Louisiana Legislature classified its citizens along racial lines and segregated them into voting districts accordingly. The district cuts across historical and cultural divides, splits twelve of its fifteen parishes and divides four of the seven major cities of the State. The statistical evidence showing the racial composition of the districts further supports the finding that District Four is "so extremely irregular on its face that it rationally can be viewed only as an effort to segregate the races for purposes of voting." Shaw v. Reno, ___ U.S. ___, 113 S.Ct. 2816, 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993).¹ Plaintiffs, by submitting the new map with their supplemental pleadings, stated a claim upon which relief can be granted under the Equal Protection Clause. We ordered the State of Louisiana and Defendant-Intervenor United States to begin the trial by rebutting this inference.

Defendants offered the testimony of two State Senators, the State Senate's assistant secretary, a geographer, and a sociologist in an effort to explain the shape of the district on other than impermissible racial grounds. Those persons involved directly with the formation of Act 1 acknowledged that the creation of a second majority-minority district was the specific intent of the Legislature. Two race-neutral explanations were submitted by the defense. First, the geographer opined that as District Four followed the Red River valley, it endowed all its residents with a commonality of interest. Second, the various witnesses asserted that District Four was inspired by "the old Eighth" district thereby satisfying the concept of "traditional" districting principles.

The starting point, following the 1990 census, was to redistrict for seven congressional districts, instead of eight, Louisiana having lost one member of Congress. Next, the State sought to comply with the Constitutional requirement of one man — one vote. In this case, each district should contain, as closely as practicable, 603,853 citizens. The State's evidence clearly shows what happened next: Misinterpreting our opinion of December 1993 as approving a racially gerrymandered district if it contained no more than 55% minority registered voters; and remaining convinced that the Department of Justice would not pre-clear any plan that did not contain two majority/minority districts, the Legislature embarked on an endeavor to comply with those demands and still secure adoption. These were the only inflexible features given to the cartographer/demographer in charge of generating the seven districts.

After reviewing the evidence, we find that Act 1 can only be explained credibly as the product of race-conscious decisionmaking. The Senators themselves admitted that race played a large if not dominant role in the map as it is now drawn. The Red River valley theory is clearly a post hoc rationalization similar to the Mississippi River theory offered to support Act 42 and equally unbelievable. The State did not imitate the "old Eighth" for tradition's sake.² The "old Eighth," certainly bizarre, before Shaw and never challenged, was crafted for the purpose of ensuring the reelection of Congressman Gillis Long. New District Four was drafted with the specific intent of ensuring a second majority-minority Congressional district. The State's purported reliance on District Four's similarity to the "old Eighth" is mere pretext. Although the witnesses highlighted other factors that carved the contours of the awkward district, the fundamental factor driving Act 1 was race.

B

ACT I IS SUBJECT TO STRICT SCRUTINY

Race-conscious redistricting, while not always unconstitutional, is always subject to strict scrutiny. This conclusion has troubled legislators, scholars, litigators, and judges alike. T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Samuel Issacharoff, Race and Redistricting: Drawing Constitutional Lines After Shaw v. Reno, 92 Mich.L.Rev. 588, 602 ("Aleinikoff"). The problem is caused by the incomplete constitutional status of affirmative action plans in the voting rights realm. In United Jewish Organization v. Carey, 430 U.S. 144, 97 S.Ct. 996, 51 L.Ed.2d 229 (1977), the Supreme Court applied a more deferential standard to what the plurality deemed "benign" measures. One year later, the Court decided Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978) following the theory that "the right not to be injured on the basis of one's skin color was a personal right secured by the Constitution, and the asserted lack of an invidious purpose could not be a sufficient reason for reducing the level of judicial scrutiny applied to measures that disadvantaged persons on the basis of race." Aleinikoff, 92 Mich.L.Rev. at 592. Eleven years later, City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 109 S.Ct. 706, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989) confirmed the notion that, since Bakke, the scrutiny applied under the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause will not vary based on the race of the preferred group. 488 U.S. at 493, 109 S.Ct. at 721-22. Shaw is consistent with the more recent equal protection precedents, focusing on individual rights as opposed to UJO's group-based approach. Aleinikoff, 92 Mich.L.Rev. at 600. By not overruling UJO, Shaw v. Reno can be read to ratify "the earlier group-based decisions which focus on whether electoral schemes `dilute' the voting strength of protected minorities while making clear that the fact of non-dilution does not immunize districting plans from constitutional challenge." Id.

"A racial classification, despite purported motivation, is presumptively invalid and can be upheld only upon an extraordinary justification." Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 272, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 2293, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979). Therefore, such legislation must be narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest if it is to pass constitutional muster.

C

COMPELLING GOVERNMENTAL INTEREST

Defendants have proved no compelling governmental interest in distinguishing among citizens of Louisiana because of their race. Defendants contend that incumbency politics, the Voting Rights Act, and remedying past legal and social or...