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KING v. STATE BD. OF ELECTIONS
979 F.Supp. 619 (1997)
James R. KING, Plaintiff,
v.
STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS, David E. Murray, Lawrence E. Johnson, Hannelore Huisman, Judith Jones, Langdon D. Neal, Theresa M. Petrone, Wanda Rednour, Defendants,
and
Bobby Rush, Timuel Black, Al Johnson, Elvira Carrizales, Neomi Hernandez, and the Chicago Urban League, and the United States of America, Defendant-Intervenors.
No. 95 C 827.
United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division.
August 5, 1997.
Douglas Edward Markham, Houston, TX, for Plaintiff.
Joan Cagen Laser, United States Atty's Office, Chicago, IL, Judson H. Miner, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, Chicago, IL, Maria Valdez, Mexican Amer.Legal Defense & Educ. Fund, Chicago, IL, Clyde Murphy, Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, Chicago, IL, Martha J. Avery, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, Chicago, IL, Brenda Wright, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, Washington, DC, Mark Stephen Grotefeld, Provizer, Phillips, Grotefeld & Denenberg, P.C., Charles Frank Marino, David M. Marino, Chicago, IL, for Intervenors.
Limo T. Cherian, Mitchell Bruce Katten, O'Rourke & Griffin, Chicago, IL, for Defendants.
Before KANNE, Circuit Judge, and NORGLE, District Judge and COAR, District Judge.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER This matter is before the court on remand from the Supreme Court for further consideration in light of Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899, 116 S.Ct. 1894, 135 L.Ed.2d 207 (1996) (hereinafter "Shaw II"), and Bush v. Vera, 517 U.S. 952, 116 S.Ct. 1941, 135 L.Ed.2d 248 (1996) (hereinafter "Bush"). King v. Illinois Bd. of Elections, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 429, 136 L.Ed.2d 328 (1996). Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2284(a), the undersigned three-judge panel was appointed to preside over this litigation. Upon remand, plaintiff filed a motion for an additional evidentiary hearing. This court denied the requested relief by order of April 4, 1997. Plaintiff has since moved this court to reconsider its ruling on that issue. Briefs have been filed both on the remand and on plaintiff's motion for an additional evidentiary hearing. Thus, this case is before the court on both issues. Having carefully examined Shaw II and Bush and the memoranda and arguments presented by the parties, this court finds both cases supportive of its analysis and accordingly affirms its previous decision in King v. State Bd. of Elections, No. 95-C827, 1996 WL 913660, ___ F.Supp. ___ (N.D.Ill. Mar. 6, 1996) (hereinafter "King I"). Moreover, for the reasons stated in this memorandum opinion, plaintiff's motion to reconsider is denied. It is important to note at the outset, however, that this opinion merely supplements the subject of the remand and its purpose is to determine what impact, if any, Shaw II and Bush have on this court's prior analyses. Hopefully, this opinion will provide a road-map of King I that illustrates that King I is in accord with Shaw II and Bush. To this end, this opinion will discuss the relevant holdings of each of those opinions. DiscussionSince this court issued its ruling in King I, the Supreme Court has further developed its constitutional jurisprudence with respect to voting rights in two pivotal decisions: Shaw II and Bush. These decisions of even date have markedly changed and elucidated the landscape of voting rights litigation and legislation. As a result, this court has undertaken a full review of the underlying record as well as the briefs filed upon this remand. The court has likewise carefully considered the evidence submitted upon the plaintiff's offer of proof in support of his motion to reopen the evidence.1 Nothing in this restudy of the
record has revealed any error in the statement of facts set forth in King I. Rather, the court remains of the view that the facts, other than those to be inferred, are correctly set forth in its prior opinion. Notwithstanding the accuracy of the factual record, certain comments upon the law are in order. Indeed, the necessity for or the propriety of reopening the record can better be judged following some analysis of both the legal and factual issues involved in this remand. Moreover, such analysis affirms this court's earlier conclusion that the Fourth Congressional District (hereinafter the "Fourth District") is constitutionally sound.
1. Plaintiff proposed to present the court with the following:
(a) Names and addresses of voters who lost their ballot secrecy in specific precincts in Chicago and Cook County; for example, two voters residing in the 400 block of Noble St. in the 1st Ward, precinct 55 in the March 19, 1996 primary were the only two of 139 Democrats in the precinct who were placed in Congressional District 7 instead of Congressional District 4; currently Plaintiff has a total of thirty (30) such instances occurring in 1996, 1994 and 1992 General Congressional Elections and the 1992 Primary Congressional Election. (b) Administrative confusion; for example, that occurring in Proviso precinct 132, in the western section of North Riverside, where voters on the 9000 block of Forest View Drive have been incorrectly assigned to Congressional District 4 for the last (3) election cycles. (c) Fractured neighborhoods, including the testimony of Dr. John Pelissaro, an expert witness in the Barnett case, regarding the continued reliance by the City and other governmental bodies upon maps of the community areas and neighborhoods of the City of Chicago. (d) Evidence of the split political subdivisions by Congressional plans in the 1980's and 1970's in contrast to the Hastert plan. (e) While evidence was offered that Hispanic citizens do not comprise a majority of the present 4th Congressional District, Plaintiff is now prepared to offer further evidence of the Citizen Voting Age Population introduced to a sister court in the Barnett proceeding. This evidence would include the testimony of Congressman Gutierrez that he knew in 1991 that Latino voters were not a majority of the district. (f) Evidence that African-Americans can elect their candidate of choice in far less racial districts than the present 7th Congressional District; this would include data of recent victories by African-American congressmen in districts with less than 50% VAP African-Americans. Pl. Motion at 3-4. 2. See King I, 979 F.Supp. at 615. 3. Id. at 614 ("The Hastert court properly held an Hispanic majority district was warranted under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act."). 4. The evidence at trial demonstrated that only 4.7% of the population of the Fourth District was contained in the connector. Id. at 609 & n. 49. Thus, all but a small fraction of the population resides within the compact areas which clearly satisfy the Gingles criteria. By contrast, only 20% of the districts challenged in Shaw II coincided with the area where the targeted minority group was allegedly geographically concentrated. Shaw II, at ___, 116 S.Ct. at 1907. Thus 80% of the district did not contain a compact minority population. Id. Moreover, the western connector serves to preserve the shared interests of Latino voters and protect the three African American majority districts from retrogression. In the absence of evidence that those districts are unconstitutionally drawn, the preservation of existing districts was a valid secondary consideration. See Good v. Austin,800 F.Supp. 551, 554 (E. & W.D.Mich.1992) (emphasis added) ("Federal courts have recognized the following as relevant secondary criteria: compactness, contiguity, preservation of the integrity of county and municipal boundaries, maintenance of the cores of existing districts, preservation of cultural, social, and economic communities of interest and political and racial fairness."); see also White v. Weiser,412 U.S. 783, 793-97, 93 S.Ct. 2348, 2353-56, 37 L.Ed.2d 335 (1973) (establishing incumbency protection as a legitimate districting principle). Thus, the western connector, while it contributes to the district's physical inelegance, does not compel a finding that traditional districting factors were subordinate to race more than reasonably necessary in the configuration of the Fourth District. 5. Although this court resolved that this evidence, when applying the "predominance of race" test, "is of extremely limited usefulness because there is no meaningful standard against which it is to be measured[,]" it also held that the data permit "the uncertain conclusion that compared to other Illinois congressional districts, the map of the Fourth Congressional District did not excessively split political subdivisions." Id. While uncertain, this conclusion offers support that the Fourth District is "reasonably compact" when viewed in comparison to other Illinois congressional districts and therefore should not be disregarded. 6. Since King I was remanded, plaintiff's counsel has directed this court's attention to certain recent decisions of the Court, e .g., Lawyer v. Department of Justice, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 2186, 138 L.Ed.2d 669 (1997) (affirming district court's decision upholding constitutionality of voting district based on low income); Meadows v. Moon, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 2501, 138 L.Ed.2d 1006 (1997) (summarily affirming district court's invalidation of Virginia's third congressional district for lack of narrow tailoring). After reviewing these decisions, this court finds that none of the cited cases affects the determinations or conclusions stated herein.
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