McNeil v. City of Springfield, Ill., 85-2365.

• Decision Date: 26 March 1987
• Docket Number: No. 85-2365.,85-2365.
• Citation: 658 F. Supp. 1015
• Parties: Frank McNEIL, William H. Washington, Sr., Rudolph V. Davenport, Howard Veal, Sr., and Archie Lawrence, Individually and representing all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, J. Michael Houston, Frank Madonia, James Norris, Ossie Langfelder, and J. Patrick Ward, as Mayor and Commissioners of the City of Springfield, Illinois, Defendants Counterplaintiffs, v. Frank McNEIL, William H. Washington, Sr., Rudolph V. Davenport, Archie Lawrence, and Howard Veal, Sr., Counterdefendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Central District of Illinois

658 F. Supp. 1015

Frank McNEIL, William H. Washington, Sr., Rudolph V. Davenport, Howard Veal, Sr., and Archie Lawrence, Individually and representing all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, J. Michael Houston, Frank Madonia, James Norris, Ossie Langfelder, and J. Patrick Ward, as Mayor and Commissioners of the City of Springfield, Illinois, Defendants Counterplaintiffs, v. Frank McNEIL, William H. Washington, Sr., Rudolph V. Davenport, Archie Lawrence, and Howard Veal, Sr., Counterdefendants.

No. 85-2365.

United States District Court, C.D. Illinois, Danville Division.

January 12, 1987.

As Corrected January 14 and March 26, 1987.

James C. Craven, Don Craven, Peter Wise, Metnick & Barewin, Springfield, Ill., Samuel Issacharoff, Robert McDuff, and Richard B. Jerome, Washington, D.C., Charles E. Carter, Grover Hankins, Baltimore, Md., for plaintiffs.

William S. Hanley and Jane Lynk, Sorling, Northrup, Hanna, Cullen & Cochran, Fredric Benson and Robert M. Rogers, Corp. Counsel, The City of Springfield, Irv Smith, Bruce Stratton, Stratton, Nardulli & Lestikow, Springfield, Ill., Steve Bickerstaff, Austin, Tex., Lawrence DiNardo, Camille Olson, Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

BAKER, Chief Judge.

I. NATURE OF THE CASE

This is a class action in which the plaintiffs, the black citizens of the United States above the age of eighteen years who are residents of the City of Springfield, Illinois, seek remedies for claimed violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended June 29, 1982. Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that the structure of the government of the City of Springfield, Illinois, results in a denial or abridgement of the plaintiffs' right to vote on account of race or color. The plaintiffs further assert that, based on the totality of the circumstances, the political processes leading to nomination or election in the City of Springfield, Illinois, are not equally open to participation by the plaintiffs because the plaintiffs have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The individual plaintiffs representing the class are Frank McNeil, William H. Washington, Sr., Rudolph V. Davenport, Archie Lawrence, and Howard Veal, Sr. The defendants are the City of Springfield, Illinois, and J. Michael Houston, Frank Madonia, James Norris, Ossie Langfelder, and J. Patrick Ward, as Mayor and Commissioners of the City of Springfield, Illinois. Each of the individual defendants is white.

Jurisdiction is given to the court by 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343(3) and (4). There is no dispute as to jurisdiction.

The case was filed on April 2, 1985. After extensive discovery by the parties and a series of hearings pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 16, the case concluded with eleven days of trial in December, 1986.

The issue presented for decision is: considering the totality of the circumstances, do the plaintiffs have an equal opportunity to participate in the political processes of the City of Springfield and to elect candidates of their choice to the city commission?

II. THE APPLICABLE LAW

The plaintiffs have brought suit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended June 29, 1982, 42 U.S.C. § 1973. That Act, as amended, reads as follows:

(a) No 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 the denial or abridgement of the right of any citizens of the United States to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in Section 4(f)(2), as provided in subsection (b).

(b) A violation of subsection (a) is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens protected by subsection (a) in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. The 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: Provided, 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.

42 U.S.C. § 1973.

To understand amended Section 2, the events leading up to its enactment should be noted. As originally enacted, Section 2 was a restatement of the Fifteenth Amendment and added little to the constitutional protections of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. See S.Rep. No. 417, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 19 (1982), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1982, pp. 177, 196 (hereinafter S.Rep. No. 417). Vote dilution challenges were generally made upon constitutional grounds. See White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 L.Ed.2d 314 (1973); City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980). The case law, in particular White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 L.Ed.2d 314 (1973) and Zimmer v. McKeithen, 485 F.2d 1297 (5th Cir.1973), aff'd sub. nom, East Carroll Parish School Board v. Marshall, 424 U.S. 636, 96 S.Ct. 1083, 47 L.Ed.2d 296 (1976) (per curiam), announced that the test in a vote dilution case, whether brought on a statutory or constitutional basis, was one of "results," looking at the totality of the circumstances. Proof of discriminatory intent was not a prerequisite to a finding that an election system was unlawful. The test changed, however, when the Supreme Court, in City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 100 S.Ct. 1490, 64 L.Ed.2d 47 (1980), held that proof of discriminatory intent was a necessary element of a vote dilution claim. The impact of Bolden was immediate. See S.Rep. No. 417, pp. 203-204.

Two years after the Bolden decision, Congress passed the amendments to Section 2. In Thornburg v. Gingles, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986), four years later, the Supreme Court had its first opportunity to interpret amended Section 2. In a case arising under amended Section 2 not only are the observations of the Supreme Court in Gingles pertinent, but also the observations of the three-judge district court whose opinion was accepted and affirmed by the Supreme Court. Gingles v. Edmisten, 590 F.Supp. 345 (E.D.N. C.1984), aff'd sub. nom, Thornburg v. Gingles, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986).

The legislative history of the amendment to Section 2 clearly shows the statute's purpose. First, the amendment was in direct response to Bolden—the fundamental aim of the amendment was to eliminate intent to discriminate as an element of a statutory vote dilution claim. The Senate Judiciary Committee Report on the amendment states, "The amendment to the language of Section 2 is designed to make clear that plaintiffs need not prove a discriminatory purpose in the adoption or maintenance of the challenged system of sic practice in order to establish a violation." S.Rep. No. 417, p. 205.

Section 2, as amended, adopted a results test which, irrespective of intent, requires assessment of the totality of the circumstances of the electoral process and a determination of whether that process resulted in cancelling out or minimizing the voting strength of racial groups. Gingles v. Edmisten, 590 F.Supp. at 353-54.

Second, the Congress intended that courts, in assessing the totality of the circumstances, should look to the interaction of the challenged mechanism with those historical social and political factors generally suggested as probative of dilution. Id. at 354. The Senate Report accompanying Section 2 lists those factors as:

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

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

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

Additional factors that in some cases have had probative value as part of plaintiffs' evidence to establish a violation are:

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

S.Rep. No. 417, pp. 206-207 (footnotes omitted).

Third, Congress intended that amended Section 2 should be interpreted in conformity with the statutory constructions of White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 L.Ed.2d 314 (1973), and its progeny. In that sense, the essence of racial vote dilution is this:

because of the interaction of substantial and persistent racial

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