LaRoque v. Holder

Citation831 F.Supp.2d 183
Decision Date22 December 2011
Docket NumberCivil Action No. 10–0561 (JDB).
PartiesStephen LaROQUE, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., in his official capacity as Attorney General of the United States, Defendant.
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Columbia

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Michael A. Carvin, David J. Strandness, Hashim M. Mooppan, Noel John Francisco, Jones Day, Michael E. Rosman, Michelle Ann Scott, Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs.

Richard Alan Dellheim, Ernest Alan McFarland, Jared Michael Slade, Justin S. Weinstein–Tull, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JOHN D. BATES, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, four private citizens and a private membership association, bring a facial challenge to the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c, and the 2006 amendments to Section 5, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c(b)-(d). Section 5, as amended, prevents certain “covered” jurisdictions from implementing any change to voting practices or procedures unless and until the jurisdiction demonstrates to federal authorities that the change “neither has the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.” 42 U.S.C. § 1973c(a).

Plaintiffs are residents of Kinston, North Carolina. In November 2008, Kinston voters adopted a referendum that would have replaced the city's current partisan electoral system with a nonpartisan system, in which anyone could run for local office and no candidate would be affiliated with any political party on the ballot. See Compl. ¶¶ 1, 14–15. Because Kinston is a covered jurisdiction under Section 5, it submitted its proposed voting change to the Attorney General for “preclearance” ( i.e., approval) under Section 5. The Attorney General declined to preclear the referendum on the ground that “elimination of party affiliation on the ballot will likely reduce the ability of blacks to elect candidates of choice.” Id. ¶ 19. Kinston did not seek administrative reconsideration of the Attorney General's objection, nor did it seek a declaratory judgment from this Court authorizing the proposed electoral change. In April 2010, however, plaintiffs, proponents of the nonpartisan-election referendum, filed this action. Plaintiffs argue that Section 5, as reauthorized and as amended in 2006, exceeds Congress's enforcement authority under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments (Count I) and that the 2006 amendments to Section 5 violate the nondiscrimination guarantees of the Fifth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments (Count II). See id. ¶¶ 1, 33–34, 36–37.

On December 20, 2010, this Court granted defendant's Motion to Dismiss [Docket Entry 11] on the ground that plaintiffs lacked standing to bring their claims. See LaRoque v. Holder, 755 F.Supp.2d 156 (D.D.C.2010) (“LaRoque I ”). On July 8, 2011, the D.C. Circuit reversed, concluding that plaintiffs had standing to bring Count I and directing this Court to consider the merits of that claim. LaRoque v. Holder, 650 F.3d 777, 793, 796 (D.C.Cir.2011) ( “LaRoque II ”). The D.C. Circuit also directed this Court to consider whether plaintiffs had standing to bring Count II, and, if so, to resolve the merits of that claim. Id. at 795–96. Shortly after the D.C. Circuit's decision, this Court decided another challenge to Section 5 brought by Shelby County, Alabama, in an opinion that involved some of the same issues raised here. Shelby Cnty., Ala. v. Holder, No. 10–651, 811 F.Supp.2d 424, 2011 WL 4375001 (D.D.C. Sept. 21, 2011). This Court concluded in Shelby County that Congress did not exceed its enforcement powers in reauthorizing Section 5's preclearance procedure in 2006. That decision resolves part of plaintiffs' Count I claim here.

Two of plaintiffs' remaining contentions, however, raise significant issues that have not been addressed in any other decision on Section 5 and the Voting Rights Act. These claims revolve around three amendments to Section 5 that Congress enacted in 2006. 42 U.S.C. § 1973c(b)-(d). The three amendments made two substantive changes to the standard applied in deciding whether a voting practice or procedure should be precleared under Section 5. Plaintiffs contend that the 2006 amendments exceed Congress's enforcement powers under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments—an argument no other challenger to the reauthorization of Section 5 has raised. Plaintiffs also contend that the amendments violate the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, the federal government's equivalent of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This appears to be the first facial challenge to a portion of Section 5 under equal protection principles. It is perhaps startling that plaintiffs claim that Section 5, a law [p]raised by some as the centerpiece of the most effective civil rights legislation ever enacted,” is actually racially discriminatory. See Shelby County, 811 F.Supp.2d at 427, 2011 WL 4375001, at *1. Nonetheless, plaintiffs argue that Congress, in its effort to counteract years of discrimination against minority voters, has overreached and harmed the interests of white voters like plaintiffs.

These two challenges call for different analyses and implicate different sets of caselaw, but both, at bottom, ask how urgent the need for Congressional legislation was in 2006 and how well Congress crafted the challenged legislation. Guided by the abundant Congressional record and the Supreme Court's caselaw on Congress's enforcement powers and equal protection principles, this Court concludes that the 2006 amendments to Section 5 are a careful solution to a vitally important problem. It therefore holds that the amendments do not violate the Constitution and that plaintiffs' facial challenges must be denied.

BACKGROUND
I. History of the Voting Rights Act

The history of the Voting Rights Act, and of Section 5 in particular, was discussed at length in this Court's opinion in Shelby County, 2011 WL 4375001, at *2–15. That history need not be repeated in full here, but a few important points bear emphasis. The Voting Rights Act (the Act or “the VRA”) “was designed by Congress to banish the blight of racial discrimination in voting.” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 308, 86 S.Ct. 803, 15 L.Ed.2d 769 (1966). The Act's core prohibition against racial discrimination in voting is contained in Section 2, which provides that [n]o voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or 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. Section 2 and many other provisions of the Voting Rights Act are permanent and apply nationwide.

In addition to the permanent, nationwide provisions, Sections 4(b) and 5 of Act impose additional requirements on certain “covered” jurisdictions. Section 4(b) determines which jurisdictions qualify as “covered.” 42 U.S.C. § 1973b(b). Section 5 provides that a covered jurisdiction cannot make any changes to its voting qualifications, standards, practices, or procedures unless those changes are first “submitted to and approved by a three-judge Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., or the Attorney General.” Nw. Austin Mun. Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193, 129 S.Ct. 2504, 2509, 174 L.Ed.2d 140 (2009) (“Nw. Austin II ”); see42 U.S.C. § 1973c(a). “Preclearance” under Section 5 will only be granted if a jurisdiction can show that its proposed voting change “neither ‘has the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.’ Nw. Austin II, 129 S.Ct. at 2509 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1973c(a)). Section 5 “shift[s] the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims,” Katzenbach, 383 U.S. at 328, 86 S.Ct. 803, by requiring covered jurisdictions to show that changes are not discriminatory before they are enacted.

Section 5 was originally scheduled to sunset after five years, but Congress reauthorized it in 1970 (for five years), 1975 (for seven years), 1982 (for twenty-five years), and 2006 (for twenty-five years). Nw. Austin II, 129 S.Ct. at 2510. During the 2006 reauthorization, Congress enacted three amendments to Section 5 that made two substantive changes to the scope of the preclearance provision. Because of the importance of those changes to this litigation, the portion of the Shelby Countyopinion describing the 2006 amendments is repeated in full here.

In the amendment codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1973c(c), Congress clarified its intent with respect to the meaning of the word “purpose” in Section 5 in response to the Supreme Court's decision in Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board, 528 U.S. 320, 120 S.Ct. 866, 145 L.Ed.2d 845 (2000) (“Bossier II ”). Section 5, by its terms, only allows a voting change to be precleared if the change “neither has the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.” See42 U.S.C. § 1973c(a). Prior to Bossier II, this provision was interpreted to bar preclearance of voting changes that either (1) were enacted with a discriminatory purpose; or (2) had a discriminatory, retrogressive effect— i.e., changes that worsened the position of minority voters relative to the status quo. See Bossier II, 528 U.S. at 324, 120 S.Ct. 866 (explaining that a redistricting plan only has a prohibited discriminatory “effect” under Section 5 if it is retrogressive); Beer v. United States, 425 U.S. 130, 141, 96 S.Ct. 1357, 47 L.Ed.2d 629 (1976) (noting that “the purpose of s [ection] 5 has always been to insure that no voting-procedure changes would be made that would lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise”). In Bossier II, however...

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