State Racial Gerrymandering for Minority Candidates to Win Office

As you know there is probably no "post-racial politics" in the United States in spite of the election of Barak Obama to the White house. American law and jurisprudence is deeply racialized. In March of 2009 in Iowa "State government officials continue to deny African-Americans jobs and promotions despite being put "on notice" multiple times during the past few years, ..." according to the Des Moines Register. This has to do with how big the pool of minority applicats for positions must be to prove that ythere is no racial bias.

So, the following court case from North Carolina is interesting as it involves gerrymandering of districts (deliberately drawing certain boundaries and shapes) to achieve a racial minority-majority (premised on the idea that African Americans would vote for a black candidate over a white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American/American Indian or other candidate and that therefore a majority of black voters in a district is a reasonable and sound idea.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-689.pdf
US Supreme Court Syllabus

BARTLETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF NORTH CAROLINA STATE BOARD OF ELECTIONS, ET AL. v. STRICKLAND ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA
No. 07–689. Argued October 14, 2008—Decided March 9, 2009

Despite the North Carolina Constitution’s “Whole County Provision” prohibiting the General Assembly from dividing counties when drawing its own legislative districts, in 1991 the legislature drew House District 18 to include portions of four counties, including Pender County, for the asserted purpose of satisfying §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. At that time, District 18 was a geographically compact majority-minority [majority black/African-American] district.

By the time the district was to be redrawn in 2003, the African-American voting-age population in District 18 had fallen below 50 percent. Rather than redrawing the district to keep Pender County whole, the legislators split portions of it and another county. District 18’s African-American voting-age population is now 39.36 percent. Keeping Pender County whole would have resulted in an African American voting-age population of 35.33 percent.

The legislators’ rationale was that splitting Pender County gave African-American voters the potential to join with majority voters to elect the minority group’s [i.e. African-American] candidate of choice, while leaving Pender County whole would have violated §2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Pender County and others filed suit, alleging that the redistricting plan violated the Whole County Provision. The state-official defendants answered that dividing Pender County was required by §2.

The trial court first considered whether the defendants had established the three threshold requirements for §2 liability under Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 51, only the first of which is relevant here: whether the minority group “is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district.”

The [trial] court concluded that although African-Americans were not a majority of District 18’s voting-age population, the district was a “defacto” majority-minority district because African-Americans could get enough support from crossover majority voters to elect their preferred candidate. The [state trial] court ultimately determined, based on the totality of the circumstances, that §2 required that Pender County be split, and it sustained District 18’s lines on that rationale.

The State Supreme Court reversed [the trial court decision], holding that a minority group must constitute a numerical majority of the voting-age population in an area before §2 requires the creation of a legislative district to prevent dilution of that group’s votes. Because African-Americans did not have such a numerical majority in District 18, the [State Supreme Court] ordered the legislature to redraw the district.

Held [by the United States Supreme Court]: The judgment [of the State of North Carolina Supreme Court] is affirmed.

Note: This case does not ask if gerrymandered districts are constitutional or not and presumably they are legal. No "post racial" politics here.