Wallace v. House

• Decision Date: 07 July 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74-2654,74-2654
• Citation: 515 F.2d 619
• Parties: George WALLACE, Sr., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. J. P. HOUSE, Individually and as Registrar of Voters of Concordia Parish, Louisiana, et al., Defendants, L. W. Davis, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 619

515 F.2d 619

27 A.L.R.Fed. 1

George WALLACE, Sr., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. J. P. HOUSE, Individually and as Registrar of Voters of Concordia Parish, Louisiana, et al., Defendants L. W. Davis, etc., et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 74-2654.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

July 7, 1975.

Norman M. Magee, Ferriday, La., for defendants-appellants.

Robert C. Downing, Asst. Atty. Gen. of La., Dept. of Justice, Monroe, La., W. C. Falkenheiner, Dist. Atty., Vidalia, La., A. Mills McCawley, Sp. Counsel, Shreveport, La., for J. P. House.

Paul H. Kidd, Monroe, La., Stanley A. Halpin, Jr., New Orleans, La., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before GOLDBERG and RONEY, Circuit Judges, and GROOMS, District Judge.

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge:

This case and a companion case, Perry v. City of Opelousas, 5 Cir. 1975, 515 F.2d 639, also decided today, form another chapter in the long and difficult struggle to ensure equal voting rights for all citizens. In the proceedings below, the district court determined that an all-at-large aldermanic election scheme in a small Louisiana town operated to dilute the votes of the town's black citizens in an unconstitutional fashion. The court also reasoned that the proposal of the Board of Aldermen (the Board) to adopt an election plan with a single at-large member also failed the constitutional test, and so ordered the implementation of an all-single-member selection process. Finally, the district court awarded attorney's fees to the black plaintiffs. 377 F.Supp. 1192. Although the all-at-large election scheme is clearly unconstitutional in the circumstances of this case, we believe that the Board's mixed election plan is not unconstitutional, and that the district court should therefore have deferred to the municipality's legislative judgment and adopted that plan. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I

Ferriday, Louisiana, is a town of 5,200 people in Concordia Parish, in the northeastern part of the state. As is common in other towns in the area, Ferriday's population is closely divided between blacks and whites: the 1970 census counted about 3,000 blacks (58%) and 2,200 whites (42%). In March, 1972, the voters of Ferriday went to the polls to elect various local officials, including five aldermen, all of whom were to be elected at-large, with no residence requirements. It is fair to say that the town is both highly politicized and racially polarized, so that when the voters were faced with a choice of five white candidates and five black candidates, they apparently opted right down the line for racial solidarity, with whites voting for whites and blacks voting for blacks. Since whites enjoyed a very slight edge in voter registration over blacks (1,571 (50.5%) to 1,538 (49.5%)), ¹ and since 83% of the eligible voters turned out on election day, no one should have been surprised to learn that all five white candidates had been elected and all five black candidates defeated.

Even if they were not surprised, the defeated blacks were very unhappy with absolutely no black representation on a Board of Aldermen in a town with a black population majority. The black candidates accordingly filed this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 class action in federal district court on June 13, 1972, charging that Ferriday's all-at-large voting scheme impermissibly diluted the votes of local blacks, and asking for appropriate declaratory and injunctive relief. The court ordered each party to submit alternative redistricting plans, and a bench trial was held on April 24 and 25, 1974, after which the district court concluded that only single-member aldermanic districts would sufficiently guarantee to the black voters the full efficacy of their right of suffrage.

II

There is no question that Ferriday's all-at-large aldermanic election scheme operated to dilute the votes of the black citizens of the town, in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment rights of that near-majority of the local electorate. As this Court noted in Howard v. Adams County Bd. of Supervisors, 5 Cir. 1972, 453 F.2d 455, 457, aggrieved voters may establish the existence of an unconstitutional districting scheme either by showing a racially motivated gerrymander or a plan drawn along racial lines, or by demonstrating that, designedly or otherwise, the particular scheme operates "to minimize or cancel out" the voting strength of minority elements of the voting population. The second type of cognizable grievance set out in Howard the grievance of plaintiffs here is generally denominated "dilution." We sketched the parameters of this complex doctrine in Zimmer v. McKeithen, 5 Cir. (en banc) 1973, 485 F.2d 1297:

The Supreme Court has identified a panoply of factors, any number of which may contribute to the existence of dilution. Clearly, it is not enough to prove a mere disparity between the number of minority residents and the number of minority representatives. Where it is apparent that a minority is afforded the opportunity to participate in the slating of candidates to represent its area, that the representatives slated and elected provide representation responsive to minority's needs, and that the use of a multi-member districting scheme is rooted in a strong state policy divorced from the maintenance of racial discrimination, Whitcomb v. Chavis (1971, 403 U.S. 124, 91 S.Ct. 1858, 29 L.Ed.2d 363), would require a holding of no dilution. (Chavis ) would not be controlling, however, where the state policy favoring multi-member or at-large districting schemes is rooted in racial discrimination. . . . (W)here a minority can demonstate a lack of access to the process of slating candidates, the unresponsiveness of legislators to their particularized interests, a tenuous state policy underlying the preference for multi-member or at-large districting, or that existence of past discrimination in general precludes the effective participation (of the complaining group) in the election system, a strong case is made. Such proof is enhanced by a showing of the existence of large districts, majority vote requirements, anti-single shot voting provisions and the lack of provision for at-large candidates running from particular geographical subdistricts. The fact of dilution is established upon proof of the existence of an aggregate of these factors. The Supreme Court's . . . pronouncement in White v. Regester (1973, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 L.Ed.2d 314), demonstrates, however, that all these factors need not be proved in order to obtain relief.

485 F.2d at 1305. See also Turner v. McKeithen, 5 Cir. 1973, 490 F.2d 191, 194.

In this case, plaintiffs presented evidence that, with one recent and fortuitous exception, ² no black has ever been elected to municipal office in Ferriday. They showed that, in this thoroughly Democratic town (there are only 85 registered Republicans in the entire parish), no black man or woman has ever been selected to run as the candidate of the Democratic Party. Plaintiffs then chronicled the all-too-familiar story of racial segregation and other racial discrimination in every facet of local public life, including public education and public employment, which discrimination is abating only now. With respect to the distribution and quality of municipal services, the district court found that the streets and sidewalks, sewers and public recreational facilities provided by the Town for its black citizens are clearly inferior to those which it provides for its white citizens. In all these years, the Ferriday Board of Aldermen has failed miserably in its responsibilities to its many black constituents.

A large part of the explanation for this inexcusable neglect of black interests is found in the fact that most blacks were not able to vote in Ferriday until fairly recently. Although no federal registrars have ever been sent to Ferriday, there were very few blacks registered to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted and enforced, and the legacy of intimidation and inferior educational opportunity inhibits many blacks in the exercise of the suffrage even when they are able to vote. Moreover, two features of Louisiana municipal election law coincide with the brief experience of black voting to minimize the impact of black votes upon the outcome of local elections, and therefore, presumably, upon the conduct of local officials. First, Lousiana law provides for a majority rather than a plurality requirement in primary elections. La.Rev.Stat. § 18:358. This seemingly nondiscriminatory provision ³ requires any candidate who receives a mere plurality in the primary to run in a second primary. Where the voters vote overwhelmingly along racial lines, where a majority of the registered voters are white and where all of the officials are elected at-large, no black candidate is likely to achieve a majority in either the first or the second primary. And here, the primary is the election. As if the majority vote requirement were not enough of an impediment to black candidates, Louisiana law poses another severe obstacle to all minority voting interests, racial and otherwise, in the form of the "anti-single shot" or "full slate" requirement. La.Rev.Stat. § 18:351. ⁴ This provision forces a voter in an at-large election to vote for as many candidates as there are places to be filled, on pain of having his ballot invalidated as to all of the at-large positions for that particular office. Where a minority interest group does not boast a full slate of candidates, the anti-single shot law requires supporters of the minority group to cast ballots for at least some of the group's opponents, thereby rendering the minority's task that much more difficult. ⁵ See generally, Derfner, Racial Discrimination and the Right to Vote, 26 Vand.L.Rev. 523 (1973).

The district court was thus presented with a history of a dearth of...