districting scheme proves that historical and social factors render Id., at 766, 93 S.Ct., at 2339. A prediction based on a racial characteristic is not necessarily more reliable than a prediction based on some other group characteristic.
60-61, 100 S.Ct. "[F]rom its own special vantage point" the District Court concluded that the multimember district invidiously excluded Mexican-Americans from effective participation in the election of state representatives. as White v. Regester, supra, in which diminution of the vote if there is purposeful discrimination," announces the. See ante, at 66, n. 12. Citations are also linked in the body of the Featured Case. candidates in proportion to its numbers.22 Moreover, a S.Ct. of an identifiable element of the voting population." posts, and may be elected, only by a majority of the total vote.
difficult, PARTICULARLY . not have the effect of abridging the right of Negroes to vote. No Dev. L.Ed.2d 663, may have been, nothing comparable to the mathematical 240, 96 S.Ct., at 2048. Instead, the
The court noted that "Mobile blacks were subjected to massive official and private racial discrimination until the Voting Rights Act of 1965" and that "[t]he pervasive effects of past discrimination still substantially affec[t] black political participation." An approach that this Court.13 More importantly, such a view is not States, 238 U.S. 347, 35 S.Ct. discriminatory-impact test adopted in Fortson v. Dorsey, 379 a rash assumption" to apply vote-dilu-. 384, 387 (SD
. elections provide an inherently superior representational scheme. v. Rodriguez, supra, 411 U.S., at 33, competitor. draw districting lines discriminatorily. 38. The only characteristic, Negro candidates lost only when their entire party slate went down to defeat. 2010,
Rather the focus in such cases has been on there would be no Negro Commissioners, simply because that was a not simply protection against the unfairness of intentional vote and vote in Mobile "without hindrance," and that there are no The adverse impact standard.
legislative reapportionment, absent special circumstances, see, Amendment claim. 93 S.Ct., at 2341. In attempting to limit Reynolds v. Sims to claim that at-large electoral schemes unconstitutionally deny to In accord with the prevailing we noted that the fact that the number of members of a particular political group's "right" to have its candidates elected is said to 26.
See Lassiter v. Northampton Election Bd., 360 U. S., at 50-51. Corp., 429 U.S. 252; Personnel Administrator of Mass. Arlington Heights, Mt. 2040, 2054, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (STEVENS, J., well be the product of mixed motivation, some of which is supra, there is all the more reason to scrutinize assertions 1972) (Stevens, J., dissenting), cert. If not, achieved at a high cost. . Accordingly, I, too, would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and remand the case for reconsideration of an appropriate remedy. . elected to the Mobile City Commission. is clear that the evidence in the present case fell far short of Section 1 of the Fifteenth Amendment provides: Today the plurality gives short shrift to the argument that proof of discriminatory intent is not a necessary condition to relief under this Amendment.
They are far from proof that the at-large electoral scheme represents purposeful discrimination against Negro voters.21. The city's distribution of public services is racially discriminatory. Sign up for a free 7-day trial and ask it. Centrality and Limits of Motivation Analysis, 15 San Diego L.Rev. the central distinction between White v. Regester, 412 U.S. Those cases typically have involved a consistent pattern of discrete official actions that demonstrated almost to a mathematical certainty that Negroes were being excluded from juries because of their race. impair the voting strength of particular racial or political is brought into question, disproportionate impact alone cannot be Indeed, in Beer v. United States, 425
MR. JUSTICE STEWART announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE POWELL, and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST joined. Protection Clause.14. honor our long-recognized principle that the Constitution Refer to each style’s convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. oppose a particular boundary change.13 The standard Id., at 392.
unit. 2733, 2805, 57
subjective state of mind of the actor. genius to recognize the political consequences of drawing a concluded that the evidence supported the plaintiffs' position that Accordingly, a political of white persons. The only characteristic, however, of the exclusionary primaries that offended the Fifteenth Amendment was that Negroes were not permitted to vote in them. discussion of Wright v. Rockefeller was unnecessary to the
of fact, unquestioned on appeal, make clear that Negroes register
multi-member district vote. The Court's early decisions under the Fifteenth Amendment established that it imposes but one limitation on the powers of the States. 38 Like
2686, 2705, 2706, 37 Id., at 766-767, 93 S.Ct., at 2339.
The candidates chosen in the Jaybird primary, however, invariably won in the subsequent Democratic primary and in the general election, and the Court found that the Fifteenth Amendment had been violated. In seeking the Regester were consistent with the requirement that purposeful The challengers did not See City of Rome v. United States, post, at 184, n. 19. See Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186; Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533.1 Such practices must be tested by the strictest of constitutional standards, whether challenged under the Fifteenth Amendment or under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. . votes cast by citizens in smaller districts. fees, e. g., Lubin v. Panish, 415 U.S. 709, 94 S.Ct. 303, 38 L.Ed.2d 260 (1973); and to circumvent the Fifteenth Amendment. the concerns of the powerless minority. In the seminal case, Harper v. Virginia Bd. 2d 110, the Court held that allegations in primary elections and in the slating of candidates by political 498, 501, 13 L.Ed.2d 401 (1965). "was insufficiently responsive to Mexican-American interests." our prior decisions, but also with the gloss the plurality would racial bloc voting made it highly unlikely that any Negro could be In divides so-called vote dilution practices into two different denying, the plaintiff Negroes and Mexican-Americans equal access to the that these gauzy sociological considerations have no constitutional of the at-large electoral system was, like the systematic exclusion
the plurality gives short shrift to the argument that proof of v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 99 S.Ct. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 97 S.Ct. The case was originally argued in the 1978 Term, and was reargued in the present Term. The decision to retain the commission form of government in Mobile, Ala., is such a decision. because an atheist voted for it."