CBC presses Supreme Court on voting rights

The Supreme Court would reverse progress made under the Voting Rights Act if it issues a ruling enforcing a strict 50 percent rule for the creation of minority districts, according to the Congressional Black Caucus. 

The case could prove critical for CBC members when states redraw district lines for the 2012 election. Nearly half of CBC members represent districts in which African Americans constitute less than 50 percent of the voting-age population.

{mosads}“I think we have never viewed the Voting Rights Act as an all-or-nothing proposition,” said Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), a CBC member. “This case positions it in this way by saying you have to have a minimum of 50 percent.”

The issue at the heart of the case, involving a North Carolina legislative district, is whether racial minority groups that constitute less than 50 percent of a possible district’s population can make a claim of “vote dilution” under the Voting Rights Act.

If the court rules in favor of the CBC’s position, it would make it easier for minorities to file lawsuits to create districts that are as little as 40 percent black. These so-called “coalition” districts are intended to ensure minority lawmakers are elected in districts even when the minority group is less than 50 percent of the population.

Based on the justices’ comments on Tuesday, however, it appears the CBC might face an uphill climb in winning the case.

“It would be hard to come away thinking the court majority was ready to accept the petitioner’s argument,” said Rick Pildes, a law professor at New York University School of Law and an expert on election law.

While liberal justices seemed to side with the CBC on Tuesday, conservatives did not. Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the court’s swing vote, also seemed critical of a threshold lower than 50 percent.

Justice Stephen Breyer argued that enough white voters might vote for a black candidate that a black population less than 50 percent could still elect a candidate of their choice.

“When I worked out the numbers, it seemed that natural stopping place fell around 42-43 percent,” he said.

But conservative Justice Antonin Scalia said this would just subject the court to more political fights. “You are just, it seems to me, tossing the whole — the whole project of drawing districts into the courts. And that is — that is not something that I, for one, favor.”

Although no one mentioned Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) on Tuesday, the possibility of the nation’s first black president looms large in the case. In the Democratic primaries, Obama won significant shares of white votes.

Obama’s success has prompted some to question whether lowering the threshold of the Voting Rights Act is necessary to protect voting rights.

“Does [the success of black candidates] mean that the Voting Rights Act is still as necessary as it once was or does is it mean that it has to just be applied differently?” asked Pildes.

Sharon Brown, principal attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian organization that filed a brief in support of the respondents, dismissed the arguments that racial considerations are necessary to ensure equal voting power, saying “I think that today’s society does not have the same types of racial discrimination as when the [Voting Rights Act] was adopted in 1965.”

“This is really just political maneuvering to ensure that certain candidates are elected,” she continued.

The CBC brief, however, argued that “the adoption of a flat 50 percent rule would freeze and even reverse progress that has been made in voting rights in this country.”

In an interview, Watt said he hoped that one day race would no longer be an issue in elections and that the Voting Rights Act would not be necessary. He said, “The Voting Rights Act was never meant to be a permanent remedy. It’s always been a temporary remedy. It’s a remedy for voters who have been unwilling to consider African American or other minority candidates.”

But he warned that America is not yet a color-blind society.

“We’re not asking for a slam dunk minority district,” he said. “The Voting Rights Act was meant to level the playing field — you need to take it district by district.”