Still Fighting for Voting Rights (The New York Times)

    @he.l(er {ork @imes
, Fqotdedial$l

ADoIfH 8. ocII8, Pttbli&ct 1,e6. $S
AaTHrrR HAYS SuIzDlaoER, Pnblids t9ig,"t96,

oRvrl, B. DRyrOoB, Pt Uidt.' tfil-tfis
o

ARmUB Ocllt SUTZEBBOER lru6ri.i.t
a

A f,t. Bo8ENTI{AI. B*autirn Editor
SitiYxot R TopprNo, Dlryi4 Efur

A8fiIUB OE[,B, Dgrt U otan t Ediror
JAI{18 L OBIED{FIE D, Atdttott Matrqiag Editdr

a
MAr( rR NI<t[. Edirordo, Pagc Editar

JACK ao3l8fIlHAI. bntt Edianiltl Pqc Editor
a

JOHN D. POMIRET, Ercc.U.P., Cen ral Manogo
BUSSItrI T. LEwIa, tt.Y.P., Cirutlation
IANCB R PBIXIS, &.V. P., Atucrtbitrg

J. A BIGcg JB. S7.U.P, Opcratiotu
HOWARD BIAHofl, U.P, EtAloycc Rclatioie

JoHN u. crBBIEx{. U. P., Coanlo, llc"
tlJSBJ.RN, vP,$eme

Still Fighting Voting Rights
Pr€sident Reagan, who won by a landslide in

lH) and 1984, lost another kind of voting battle by
.another kind of landslide in 1982. That's when Con-
gness, despite his opposition, voted overwhelmingly

-to str€ogthen the Voting Rights Act. The votes, 380
.to2lln the House and 85 to 8 in the Senate, so burled
,the oppaitim that Mr. Reagan reluctantly signed
:the bill rather than have his veto overidden. Now
thc Admintstratim seeks to win in the Suprcme
,Cqrrt urtat it lost in Congress. In a case fiom North
Carolina, it has asked the Justices to interpret the
law in precisely the ways Congress rejected so re
sonndingty.

It's not eyen a partisan initiative; other Repub
lUcans nrsh to dissociate themselves fmm it. Sena-
tor Robert Dole, tlre maJority leader, and others

-who guided the voting bill to passage haye re
,spmded with their own brief urging the Coufi not to
trim the law to Administration speciflcations. Suctr
a brief dramatizes the Administration's estrange
ment lrom civll rights, mainstream polttics and the
bipartisan national sense ol electoral ,ustice that in-
spired the lW law.

;'
The law arose because of a 19fl) Supreme Court

ruliry that anyone trying to challenge state voting
-rules had to prcve discriminatory intent on the part
ol state lawmakers. Gerrymanders and other de
vices coild nulltfy the growing black rrote, yet show-
irU they were tntended to discrimirlate was an im-
possible burden.

Cmsider a tlpical tactic, the multi-member
electim district. Smaller districts might enable
black neig[bortoods to elect candidates of their
choice. Submerging thce populations wi0dn large
areas with white maJorities meant that fewer or no
blacks wurld be elected. But who could prove a dls-
cdminator!, motlve?

Congress did not outlaw at-large districts or
any other voting practice. It said they were invalid
if, based on all the evidence, the political process
was "not equally open" to minorities. Electoral suc-
cess or lack of it was to be one of the criteria but,
significantly, the law disavowed any minority right
to r€pr€s€ntation in proportion to population. In
other words, no racial quotas.

In the North Carolina case a Federal court
weighed all the evidelrce, including a century of dis-
crlminatim, and lound that several atJarge dis-
tricB violated the law. The Justice Department,
joining the state's appeal, argued that since blacks
have made gains in two recent elections - up from 4
legislators to 16 - the lower court must have been
ustng a forbidden quota as a yardstick.

Do a terv victories for blacks exonerate North
Carolina's practices? On its face, the lS2 law says
no. Congress made clear in the law and committee
reporB that, just as no one factor is enough to con-
demn a distrlctfuU plan, no single factor exonerates
it. fuiy other reading of the law would give greater
weight to a handfirl of successes than to decades of
unfairdeleats, and under conditions that threaten to
make them temporary.

The same Justice Department that tried to ob
struct the bill has the netve to ask the court, in in-
terpreting the law, to give more weight to the views
of Senator Orrin Hatch, who led the eight senators
who oppced it, than to Senator Dole and the 8ti sena-
tors who voted for it. The Department characterizes
them as a "faction."

Ignoring the usual canons for construing stat-
utes, the Justice Department must strain to read
the lffil law the way it does. For the Administration
to insist m strainlng is to flout what Senator Dole
and his "faction" know: decency and fairness to un-
derrepresented minorides is always, regardless of
party, the best politics.