Shelby Cnty. v. Lynch
| Decision Date | 01 September 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 14–5138.,14–5138. |
| Citation | 799 F.3d 1173 |
| Parties | SHELBY COUNTY, ALABAMA, Appellant v. Loretta E. LYNCH, in her Official Capacity as Attorney General of the United States, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Bert W. Rein argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs were Brendan J. Morrissey and J. Michael Connolly. William S. Consovoy and Thomas R. McCarthy entered appearances.
Dale Ho argued the cause for intervenor-appellees. With him on the brief were Jon M. Greenbaum, Sherrilyn Ifill, Janai S. Nelson, Christina A. Swarns, Ryan P. Haygood, Natasha M. Korgaonkar, Leah C. Aden, and Deuel Ross. Moffatt L. McDonald, Arthur B. Spitzer, and John M. Nonna entered appearances.
Nathaniel S. Pollock, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Mark L. Gross, Attorney.
Before: TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.
Shelby County, Alabama, prevailed in a challenge to the constitutionality of section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) and now seeks attorneys' fees from the Government under the Act's fee-shifting provision. The district court found that Shelby County was not entitled to receive fees because its victory did not advance any of the goals Congress meant to promote by making fees available. We agree.
The historical and legal background to this dispute has been set out several times over the history of this case. See Shelby Cnty., Ala. v. Holder, –––U.S. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 2612, 2619–21, 186 L.Ed.2d 651 (2013) ; Shelby Cnty., Ala. v. Holder, 679 F.3d 848, 853–58 (D.C.Cir.2012), rev'd, ––– U.S. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 2612, 186 L.Ed.2d 651 ; Shelby Cnty., Ala. v. Holder, 43 F.Supp.3d 47, 50–52 (D.D.C.2014) ; Shelby Cnty., Ala. v. Holder, 811 F.Supp.2d 424, 428–41 (D.D.C.2011), aff'd, 679 F.3d 848 (D.C.Cir.2012), rev'd, ––– U.S. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 2612, 186 L.Ed.2d 651 (2013). We assume familiarity with those discussions and will cover only the topics relevant to this fee dispute.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Nation ratified the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution in an effort to stamp out the race-based forms of legal oppression that the states had imposed throughout the first century of the Republic. These amendments worked a profound change by sweeping away the most appalling forms of legal subjugation that had defined the pre-Civil War era. Black Americans now held the sovereign franchise and were entitled to equal treatment under the law. But racial prejudice is not only insidious, it is resilient. The serpent of state-sponsored racism remained in the garden and “the blight of racial discrimination” simply switched its focus to a new battleground and “infected the electoral process” that black citizens had only begun to enter. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 308, 86 S.Ct. 803, 15 L.Ed.2d 769 (1966). Almost as soon as Reconstruction ended, a number of states adopted a variety of devices to suppress the newly established franchise of black citizens. Id. at 310, 86 S.Ct. 803. Literacy tests, grandfather clauses, poll taxes, and property qualifications prevented black Americans from voting at all. Id. at 310–11, 86 S.Ct. 803. And cunning district design and other tactics almost completely diluted the political power of black citizens. See Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 640, 113 S.Ct. 2816, 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993).
It was not until the 1950s that Congress began to take action to secure the promise of equal citizenship extended after the Civil War; among other things, Congress passed three statutes authorizing individual suits to protect voting rights. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. at 313, 86 S.Ct. 803. But case-by-case litigation proved too slow, so Congress enacted a further-reaching solution to “rid the country of racial discrimination in voting,” id. at 315, 86 S.Ct. 803 : the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The VRA contained two principal provisions. The first, section 2, created a permanent, nationwide replacement for earlier civil rights statutes and authorized individual suits against any state or local jurisdiction that adopted a voting practice that had a discriminatory purpose or result. See Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 35, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986). The second, section 5, was even more dramatic: It imposed on “covered jurisdictions” the requirement of obtaining “preclearance” for “all changes in state election procedure” from a three-judge federal district court in Washington, D.C., or from the Attorney General before they could take effect. Nw. Austin Mun. Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U.S. 193, 198, 203, 129 S.Ct. 2504, 174 L.Ed.2d 140 (2009). The scope of section 5 was set by a formula in section 4 of the Act that covered any state or political subdivision that met certain telltale criteria of discriminatory voting practices as of November 1, 1964. See Shelby County, 679 F.3d at 855. The scope of this intrusion onto state affairs, Congress found, was justified by the severity and intractability of the problem posed by racial discrimination in voting. Under the older case-by-case approach to litigating voting abuses, progress had been “painfully slow,” in part “because of the intransigence of [s]tate and local officials and repeated delays in the judicial process,” but also because “even after apparent defeat resisters [sought] new ways and means of discriminating.” H.R.Rep. No. 89–439, at 9–10 (1965). “Barring one contrivance too often ... caused no change in result, only methods.” Id. at 10. In the face of this record, Congress concluded that there was “little basis for supposing” that without legislative action “the [s]tates and subdivisions affected will themselves remedy the present situation....” S.Rep. No. 89–162, at 19 (1965). “Thus, to keep minorities from continuing to be victimized by [s]tates and political subdivisions' actions, Congress sought, through [sections 4 and 5] to ‘shift the benefit of time and inertia from the perpetrators of evil to the victim.’ ” H.R.Rep. No. 109–478, at 8 (2006) (quoting Katzenbach, 383 U.S. at 328, 86 S.Ct. 803 ).
“The historic accomplishments of the Voting Rights Act are undeniable.” Northwest Austin, 557 U.S. at 201, 129 S.Ct. 2504. “The Act ... proved immensely successful at redressing racial discrimination and integrating the voting process.” Shelby County, 133 S.Ct. at 2626. The change wrought by section 5 in particular can hardly be overstated. As Congress put it when reauthorizing the VRA in 2006, section 5 was a “vital prophylactic tool[ ], protecting minority voters from devices and schemes that continue[d] to be employed by covered [s]tates and jurisdictions.” H.R.Rep. No. 109–478, at 21 ; see also id. at 24 (); S.Rep. No. 94–295, at 19 (1975) ( ).
The coverage formula in section 4 and the preclearance regime in section 5 of the VRA were both originally subject to five-year sunset clauses. Northwest Austin, 557 U.S. at 199, 129 S.Ct. 2504. When their scheduled expiration drew near in 1970, Congress renewed both provisions and once again set an expiration date for five years later. The House supported the reauthorization by a vote of 272 to 132, the Senate by a margin of 64 to 12. J. Morgan Kousser, The Strange, Ironic Career of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, 1965–2007, 86 TEX. L. REV. 667, 687 (2008). When the next deadline approached in 1975, Congress reauthorized both provisions yet again with a seven-year sunset clause, this time by a vote of 346 to 56 in the House and 77 to 12 in the Senate. Id. at 705–06. In 1982, with the seven-year window coming to an end, Congress reauthorized both provisions a third time, but added a twenty-five-year sunset clause. The House voted for reauthorization 389 to 24 and the Senate 85 to 8. Id. at 707. Finally, in 2006, Congress again reauthorized both provisions for another twenty-five years. In the House, 390 members supported reauthorization, with 33 opposed. Id. In the Senate, the vote was 98 to 0 in favor of reauthorization. Id. When he signed the reauthorization into law, President George W. Bush remarked: Press Release, Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, President Bush Signs Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 (July 27, 2006), 2006 WL 2076688, at *1–2. Because of this series of reauthorizations, neither section 4 nor section 5 ever expired. Congress made some changes to the provisions along the way, twice altering the basic coverage formula in section 4 so that it would include even more jurisdictions. Shelby County, 133 S.Ct. at 2620.
Shelby County, Alabama, was covered by the section 5 preclearance regime under the formula set out in section 4 of the VRA and challenged the constitutionality of both in a suit filed in district court in the District of Columbia.
After losing in the district court and before us, Shelby County ultimately prevailed when the Supreme Court ruled the coverage formula unconstitutional. Shelby County, 133 S.Ct. at 2631. The Court explained that “ ‘the Framers of the Constitution [also] intended the [s]tates to keep for themselves, as provided in the Tenth Amendment, the power to...
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