R.I. redistricting challenge allowed
WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court, ruling in a Rhode Island case, has broadly expanded the right of minorities who make up only about a fourth of a district's voters to challenge a redistricting plan that reduces or eliminates their chance to influence the outcome of elections.
By a 2-1 vote, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, based in Boston, decided that federal voting rights law forbids the dilution of minority voters' influence in elections even when they do not constitute a majority that could control the outcome.
With the help of other voters who support the same candidates, minority blocs have been able to make their wishes prevail in some districts despite making up a relatively low percentage of the population. In election law, such districts are called "influence districts" or "crossover districts."
In Rhode Island, the only black member ever elected to the state Senate, Charles D. Walton of Providence, had won in a district that was about 25.7 percent black. But, after the Senate was reduced from 50 to 38 members, a new district that was only 21.4 percent black was crafted for that area of Providence. Walton lost in the Democratic primary.
Black voters asserted that the reduction in their share of the district was to blame, saying a map could have been drawn to make the district at least 26 percent black -- enough for Walton to be elected again with the aid of some "crossover" votes from whites and Hispanics. The ruling gives black voters in the district a chance to prove their case at trial.
The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that blacks must have a majority in a potential voting district before they may challenge that district on the theory that it denies them a chance to elect their preferred candidate. But it has not yet decided whether blacks who do not have a majority, but who have enough numbers to have influence at election time, can challenge the dilution of that influence.
The appeals court ruled directly on that issue, concluding that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 protects blacks against a reduction of their influence regardless of their proportion of the population.
The law, the court said, is not limited to protecting the strength of black voters only when they constitute the majority of a district.
Requiring black voters to show that they could form an absolute majority before they are protected from dilution of their electoral power, the court said in an opinion written by Circuit Judge Sandra L. Lynch of Boston, "ignores the reality that they could elect a preferred candidate without such numbers."
The opinion was joined by Senior Circuit Judge Norman H. Stahl of Boston. Circuit Judge Bruce M. Selya of Providence dissented, saying the Voting Rights Act "does not give courts the raw power to privilege the interests of the few over the interests of the many, much less the power to override the normal functioning of the majoritarian process."
The ruling, issued on Tuesday, may be challenged either before the full First Circuit or in an appeal to the Supreme Court, according to Providence attorney Normand G. Benoit, who represented the state Legislature.
Benoit said the ruling will make it harder for legislatures to draw new districting lines.
He said the appeals court adopted a standard that has been used in states that in the past had intentionally discriminated against black voters, and applied it to Rhode Island, "which has no such history."
