Smith v. Clinton, Civ. A. No. LR-C-88-29.
| Decision Date | 16 May 1988 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. LR-C-88-29. |
| Citation | 687 F. Supp. 1310 |
| Parties | Elbert SMITH, Vickie Miles Robertson, Johnny Mae Williams, Maxine Bohannon, Carolyn Stephenson, Ester Cage, Faye Williams, Darrick Handy, Anthony R. Holmes, Carol Holmes, and Maggie Hall, on Behalf of Themselves, and All Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs, v. Bill CLINTON, Governor of Arkansas, Bill McCuen, Secretary of State of Arkansas, and Steve Clark, Attorney General of Arkansas, in Their Respective Official Capacities and in Their Official Capacities as Members of the Board of Apportionment of the State of Arkansas; Lilburn W. Carlisle, Chairperson of the Arkansas State Committee of the Democratic Party; Tommye S. Givens, Secretary of the Arkansas State Committee of the Democratic Party; Ed Bethune, Chairperson of the Arkansas State Committee of the Republican Party; and Phyllis Kincannon, Secretary of the Arkansas State Committee of the Republic Party, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas |
William L. Robinson, Frank R. Parker, Robert B. McDuff, Samuel Issacharoff, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, D.C., Ben Thomas Cole, II, East Arkansas Legal Services, West Memphis, Ark., Reginald Robertson, East Arkansas Legal Services, Helena, Ark., Victor Hill, East Arkansas Legal Services, Blytheville, Ark. (John Walker and Lazar M. Palnick, Little Rock, Ark., of counsel) for plaintiffs.
Frank J. Wills, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, Ark., for Bill Clinton, Bill McCuen and Steve Clark.
Kent J. Rubens, West Memphis, Ark., for Lilburn W. Carlisle, Tommye S. Givens.
Before ARNOLD, Circuit Judge, HARRIS, Senior District Judge, and WOODS, District Judge.
The issue in this case is whether at-large voting for two seats in the Arkansas House of Representatives from dual-member District 48-49 in Crittenden County denies black voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process, in violation of section 2 et seq. of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973 et seq.1
We have made a careful, practical assessment of the impact of the challenged multimember structure, "in the light of past and present reality, political and otherwise." See White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 769-70, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 2341, 37 L.Ed.2d 314 (1973). We now hold that the plaintiffs have demonstrated a violation of their rights under federal law. The crux of our decision is this: at-large election of representatives in this multimember structure so dilutes the voting strength of black residents of the district as virtually to guarantee that no black person will ever be elected State Representative in Crittenden County.
The Court also finds that it is feasible to divide District 48-49 into two contiguous, rationally sized legislative districts, with black voters in the majority in one of the districts. Accordingly, we hold that the March 8, 1988 primary election for State Representative from the district must be set aside, and a plan to divide District 48-49 into two districts must be implemented in time for a special primary election to be held before the November 1988 general election. The order of this Court is intended to affect no portion of the Arkansas legislative apportionment structure except that in District 48-49.
Members of the Arkansas House of Representatives are elected every two years for two-year terms. Ark. Const. Art. V, § 2. Candidates for the Legislature must obtain a majority of the vote in order to win party nomination. Ark.Code Ann. §§ 7-7-102(a), 7-7-304(a)(2) (1987). If no candidate receives a majority of votes in the primary, a run-off election is held. Ark.Code Ann. § 7-7-304(a)(3) (1987). The parties have stipulated that seventy-four of the one hundred members of the State House of Representatives are elected from single-member districts.
House District 48-49 is a single geographic entity from which two State Representatives are elected through at-large voting. Candidates designate District 48 or District 49 as the seat for which they choose to run. District 48-49 is located entirely within Crittenden County, and encompasses most of the county's area and ninety-four percent of its population. There is no subdistrict-residency requirement for State Representative candidates.
According to estimates based on 1980 census data, approximately forty-two percent of the population of District 48-49 is black, and about thirty-seven percent of the district residents who are of voting age are black. No black candidate has ever been elected State Representative from District 48-49; nor has any black person been elected to the Arkansas General Assembly from Crittenden County in the Twentieth Century.
Plaintiffs Elbert Smith and others, black registered voters in District 48-49, filed this action on January 15, 1988, challenging on statutory and constitutional grounds the multimember structure of the district. The defendants include the Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General of Arkansas (members of the State Board of Apportionment), and the principal officers of the Democratic and Republican parties in the State. Plaintiffs alleged that the multimember legislative district adversely affects the opportunity for black residents to participate in the political process, in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and 42 U.S. C. § 1983. The plaintiffs also moved to enjoin the March 8, 1988 primary election for State Representatives from the district.
On February 16, 1988, this Court held a hearing on the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction. After hearing evidence for a day, we denied the motion, stating our reasons from the bench. The plaintiffs, we said, had shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits, but we could not say at that early stage of the case that defendants' chances were negligible. Candidates had already filed and done a good deal of campaigning. It seemed best to let the election be held, subject always to our ability to set it aside, if plaintiffs should win at the trial on the merits, in time to re-run the election in single-member districts in 1988. In making this decision we were heavily influenced by a reluctance to interfere with state election processes on less than a full record.
So the primary election2 was held on March 8. State Representative Lloyd McCuiston, who is white, ran for one seat without opposition, and he was renominated. State Representative James Stockley, who is white, defeated Ben McGee, who is black, for the nomination for the other seat. The trial on the merits of this case followed on April 25 and 26.
Initially, we address the defendants' contention that we need not reach the merits of this case. The defendants suggest that the plaintiffs are barred because of the passage of time since the State Board of Apportionment formulated the present state-wide plan in 1981. The necessary premise of this argument is that unless voters challenge an apportionment plan promptly upon its being put into effect, they are barred from contesting a district until a subsequent reapportionment.3 We conclude that neither the doctrine of laches nor the expiration of an applicable limitations period presents an obstacle to the plaintiffs' case under the Voting Rights Act. First, the injury alleged by the plaintiffs is continuing, suffered anew each time a State Representative election is held under the multimember structure. Second, there have been significant developments since the 1981 Arkansas reapportionment. The Voting Rights Act was amended in 1982, and the Supreme Court's interpretation of the statute in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 106 S.Ct. 2752, 92 L.Ed.2d 25 (1986), lays down a rather uncompromising structure for the application of the law in vote-dilution cases. Third, we note that the plaintiffs are required to prove that, as a result of the challenged structure, a white majority bloc is usually able to defeat the preferred candidates of the minority. Of course, evidence of this circumstance would be unavailable unless the structure had been in place for some time.
It is suggested that the complaint should be dismissed because indispensable parties have not been joined, those parties being the members of the State Legislature affected by the case. There is no question that they are affected, but we do not believe that they are indispensable in the legal sense. It was open to members of the Legislature to intervene and become parties, if they wished to do so. Both of them have been in the courtroom throughout this case, and one of them testified. In any event, their legal interests have been considered just as fully as if they were parties.
The defendants next contend that the plaintiffs may not challenge one district out of the whole state reapportionment plan. Plaintiffs, they say, must either challenge the whole plan or state that they have no objection to any part of it other than District 48-49. This argument, too, is without merit: assuming that there is a State policy that would require a suit filed in State court to challenge the whole plan or not at all, see Bizzell v. White, 274 Ark. 511, 625 S.W.2d 528 (1981) (per curiam) (4-3 decision), such a policy would not govern the application of federal law by a federal court. If the plaintiffs are injured by a particular aspect of the plan and are not affected at all by the rest of it, there is no reason why they should not be allowed to challenge the aspect of the plan that affects them.4 Indeed, they would presumably lack standing under Article III to challenge aspects of the plan (for example, multimember districts in other parts of the State) that do not affect them at all.5
Accordingly, we proceed to discuss the law applicable to the merits of this case.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended and codified, reads as follows:...
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