“The case, United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh v. Carey (1977), became one of the leading cases dealing with gerrymandering, multi-member districts, and affirmative action. We represented the local NAACP, and I asked Lou Pollak to argue the case...the Supreme Court held that a reapportionment does not violate the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments 'merely because a State uses specific numerical quotas in establishing a certain number of black majority districts.' The Court likened the districting to creating single-member districts out of multi-member districts in order to increase minority representation, a practice that it approved.
“In 1976, Jim Blackshear, one of a small number of cooperating lawyers, won a multi-member district case in federal district court against the city of Mobile on grounds similar to those later approved in the Williamsburgh case. But by 1980, after Blackshear's case had struggled upward, the Supreme Court changed its mind. It reversed the lower court Mobile decision, writing six separate opinions that, pieced together, concluded that the Voting Rights Act required proof of discriminatory intent. Discriminatory result would not be enough. Intent was especially hard to prove in Mobile because its election system originated in 1810, and went through many changes over the years. As a result of that decision most multi-member district cases became unwinnable.
“Blackshear asked for a new trial and set out to prove intent, knowing well that to come up with a smoking gun in such matters is almost impossible. I allocated $20,000 for a team of historians of the South to dig up Mobile's past. They unearthed material from archives in Montgomery, newspaper clippings, and other repositories, tracing Alabama history back to the early nineteenth century to the present, demonstrating that, after the Civil War, Mobile's at-large system had been perpetuated to maintain white control. My favorite piece of the history is an 1869 legislative committee report of an attack on black voters during a Mobile election: 'One organization known as a “Fire Company”... threw open the doors of of their engine house and ran into the street a piece of artillery which had been concealed... and actually loaded and trained it upon the crowd at said polls... As may be expected, especially from the timid, hundreds left that place as fast as possible.'
“The smoking gun, indeed!
“In April, 1982, the trial judge found that Mobile's at-large system was infected by discriminatory intent. But it would be impossible to win many at-large cases if it were necessary to prove intent. The evidence might not always be found and the expense would be prohibitive. The answer was for Congress to tell the Court that it didn't understand its intent in enacting the 1965 Voting Rights Act...
“In a curious irony, some Republicans in the late 1980's began advocating creation of majority black districts, because where black voters are zoned compactly fewer can join white Democrats to create Democratic majorities in white areas, making Republicans even more the party of the white majority area.”
Friday, January 24, 2014
CRUSADERS IN THE COURTS...EXCERPT
CRUSADERS IN THE COURTS: Legal Battles in the Civil Rights Movement, by Jack Greenberg (Twelve Tables Press, NY: 2004), p. 512-13, 516 – “LDF Goes to Washington”
“The case, United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh v. Carey (1977), became one of the leading cases dealing with gerrymandering, multi-member districts, and affirmative action. We represented the local NAACP, and I asked Lou Pollak to argue the case...the Supreme Court held that a reapportionment does not violate the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments 'merely because a State uses specific numerical quotas in establishing a certain number of black majority districts.' The Court likened the districting to creating single-member districts out of multi-member districts in order to increase minority representation, a practice that it approved.
“In 1976, Jim Blackshear, one of a small number of cooperating lawyers, won a multi-member district case in federal district court against the city of Mobile on grounds similar to those later approved in the Williamsburgh case. But by 1980, after Blackshear's case had struggled upward, the Supreme Court changed its mind. It reversed the lower court Mobile decision, writing six separate opinions that, pieced together, concluded that the Voting Rights Act required proof of discriminatory intent. Discriminatory result would not be enough. Intent was especially hard to prove in Mobile because its election system originated in 1810, and went through many changes over the years. As a result of that decision most multi-member district cases became unwinnable.
“Blackshear asked for a new trial and set out to prove intent, knowing well that to come up with a smoking gun in such matters is almost impossible. I allocated $20,000 for a team of historians of the South to dig up Mobile's past. They unearthed material from archives in Montgomery, newspaper clippings, and other repositories, tracing Alabama history back to the early nineteenth century to the present, demonstrating that, after the Civil War, Mobile's at-large system had been perpetuated to maintain white control. My favorite piece of the history is an 1869 legislative committee report of an attack on black voters during a Mobile election: 'One organization known as a “Fire Company”... threw open the doors of of their engine house and ran into the street a piece of artillery which had been concealed... and actually loaded and trained it upon the crowd at said polls... As may be expected, especially from the timid, hundreds left that place as fast as possible.'
“The smoking gun, indeed!
“In April, 1982, the trial judge found that Mobile's at-large system was infected by discriminatory intent. But it would be impossible to win many at-large cases if it were necessary to prove intent. The evidence might not always be found and the expense would be prohibitive. The answer was for Congress to tell the Court that it didn't understand its intent in enacting the 1965 Voting Rights Act...
“In a curious irony, some Republicans in the late 1980's began advocating creation of majority black districts, because where black voters are zoned compactly fewer can join white Democrats to create Democratic majorities in white areas, making Republicans even more the party of the white majority area.”
“The case, United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh v. Carey (1977), became one of the leading cases dealing with gerrymandering, multi-member districts, and affirmative action. We represented the local NAACP, and I asked Lou Pollak to argue the case...the Supreme Court held that a reapportionment does not violate the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments 'merely because a State uses specific numerical quotas in establishing a certain number of black majority districts.' The Court likened the districting to creating single-member districts out of multi-member districts in order to increase minority representation, a practice that it approved.
“In 1976, Jim Blackshear, one of a small number of cooperating lawyers, won a multi-member district case in federal district court against the city of Mobile on grounds similar to those later approved in the Williamsburgh case. But by 1980, after Blackshear's case had struggled upward, the Supreme Court changed its mind. It reversed the lower court Mobile decision, writing six separate opinions that, pieced together, concluded that the Voting Rights Act required proof of discriminatory intent. Discriminatory result would not be enough. Intent was especially hard to prove in Mobile because its election system originated in 1810, and went through many changes over the years. As a result of that decision most multi-member district cases became unwinnable.
“Blackshear asked for a new trial and set out to prove intent, knowing well that to come up with a smoking gun in such matters is almost impossible. I allocated $20,000 for a team of historians of the South to dig up Mobile's past. They unearthed material from archives in Montgomery, newspaper clippings, and other repositories, tracing Alabama history back to the early nineteenth century to the present, demonstrating that, after the Civil War, Mobile's at-large system had been perpetuated to maintain white control. My favorite piece of the history is an 1869 legislative committee report of an attack on black voters during a Mobile election: 'One organization known as a “Fire Company”... threw open the doors of of their engine house and ran into the street a piece of artillery which had been concealed... and actually loaded and trained it upon the crowd at said polls... As may be expected, especially from the timid, hundreds left that place as fast as possible.'
“The smoking gun, indeed!
“In April, 1982, the trial judge found that Mobile's at-large system was infected by discriminatory intent. But it would be impossible to win many at-large cases if it were necessary to prove intent. The evidence might not always be found and the expense would be prohibitive. The answer was for Congress to tell the Court that it didn't understand its intent in enacting the 1965 Voting Rights Act...
“In a curious irony, some Republicans in the late 1980's began advocating creation of majority black districts, because where black voters are zoned compactly fewer can join white Democrats to create Democratic majorities in white areas, making Republicans even more the party of the white majority area.”
