Correspondence from Quigley to Jones, Guinier, and Karlan; Treen Judgeship May Spark Battle News Clipping

    WILLIAM PATRICK QUIGLEY 
ATTORNEY AT LAW 
631 ST. CHARLES AVENUE 

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA 70130 
IN ASSOCIATION WITH: 
CATER & WILLIS TELEPHONE: (504) 524-0016 

A PROFESSIONAL LAW CORPORATION 
R. GLENN CATER 
JENNIFER N. WILLIS 
WAYNE P. TATE 
(504) 524-2267 

March 18, 1988 

Elaine Jones 

Legal Defense Fund 

Suite 940 
806 15th St. N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20005 

bani Quinjer 

Legal Defense Fund 
99 Hudson St. 
16th Floor 
New York, NY 10013 

Pam Karlan 

Legal Defense Fund 
99 Hudson St. 

16th Floor 
New York, NY 10013 

Re: Dave Treen 

Dear Friends: 

Enclosed please find the latest newspaper article about 

Governor Treen. 

It is noteworthy because this is the first time, that I know 

of, that Governor Treen denies that he and his administration had 

any hand in drawing up the donald duck congressional districts. 

As I recall, I thought that the testimony of Chehardy and 

others was that while Treen and his minions may not have been in 

the meeting, those in the basement meeting constantly communica- 

ted with Treen upstairs in the Governor's office. 

If we have some testimony to that affect, I believe that we 

can get another article out of this columnist who is very 

interested in that issue.  



March 18, 1988 
Page 2 

Please let me know what you think. 

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JAITICS ii 
  

Treen judgeship may spark battle 
hen Dave Treen comes up for 
confirmation to a federal 
appeals court judgeship, the 
Senate Judiciary Committee is 

expected to stage its bloodiest session ‘since 
the Robert Bork hearings. a 

Treen’s detractors, led locally by ACLU 
attorney Bill Quigley, say Treen should be 
kept off the federal bench because he hag con- 
sistently espoused racist policies since his 
days as chairman of the States Rights Party 
almost 30 years ago. 

Treen naturally denies any animus against 
blacks, but he has been involved in enough 
controversy. over the years to make the’liber- 
als on the Senate committee slaver. : 1 

A 1960 flyer lists Treen, along with such lu- 
minaries as Judge Leander Perez and Willie 
Rainach, as a speaker at a “rally to save seg- 
regation.” 

His attitudes had not changed much by the 
time he became governor of Louisiana, oppo- 
nents of his nomination say, citing his deter- 
mined efforts to block creation of a black- 
majority congressional district in’ New 
Orleans. 
When the state Legislature came to redraw 

congressional districts after the 1980 census, 
both House and Senate voted for a black-ma- 
jority district consisting of New Orleans and a 
handful of Jefferson Parish precincts. Treen 
promised a veto, whereupon legislators and 
other public officials met in the Capitol base- 
ment and came up with a plan more accepta- 
ble to the governor. ; 

This time the black vote was split between 
two white-majority districts by means of 
some remarkable cartography that produced a 
district shaped just like the head and bill of a 
duck. It was, indeed, generally known ‘as the 
Donald Duck plan. 3 

Treen’s foes have often alleged that mem- 
bers of his staff participated in the basement 
reapportionment session, to which black leg- 
islators were not invited. But Treen denies 
that his administration had any hand in 
drawing up the Donald Duck map, although 
he certainly pushed hard to get it approved by 
the Justice Department and defended it 
stoutly in the federal court that finally threw 
it out. 

  

Dave Treen 
Another Bork? 

When Donald Duck was submitted to the 
Justice Department, the staff recommended it 
be rejected. An attorney who analyzed the 
plan wrote, “It is clear in our view that the 
governor was acutely aware of the racial con- 
sequences of his actions, and those racial con- 
siderations formed the basis of his actions.” 

But William Bradford Reynolds, head of 
the Civil Rights Division, after several con- 
versations with Treen, overruled staff objec- 
tions and gave Donald Duck the nod. 
Reynolds would later have occasion to rue 
that decision, which was a principal factor in 
the Senate Judiciary Committee’s refusal to 
approve his elevation to associate attorney 
general in 1985. 

In court testimony Jerris Leonard, head of 
the Civil Rights Division under Richard 
Nixon, ranked Donald Duck as one of the 
three most “egregious and blatant racial ger- 
rymanders” in American history. It never had 
a chance of passing muster in court. 

Treen now says that his principal aim in 
congressional reapportionment was to achieve 
a numerical balance while saving his fellow 
Republican Bob Livingston’s district from 
“mutilation.” However, he remains opposed 

  

to creating districts with black majorities, 
which he says “are arguably not in the best | 
interests of the black race.” 

He argues that whites are more inclined to 
vote for blacks than vice versa. Therefore, he 
says, “a black is an odds-on favorite where | 
the black population is 45 percent. If we took 
all the blacks and put them in black-majority | 
districts, that would be the best way to reduce | 
their clout in the Legislature.” 

Quigley and the rest of Treen’s opponents 
claim he was an enemy of civil rights in vot- 
ing, housing and education when he thrice 
ran unsuccessfully against Hale Boggs for 
Congress in the 1960s. As a congressman in | 
the 1970s, according to the Louisiana Legis- | 
lative Black Caucus, Treen “almost always | 
voted against positions supported by the | 
black community.” 

Treen concedes that he voted against ex- | 
tension of the Voting Rights Act in 1975 and | 
was the only Southern governor to oppose its | 
extension and amendment in 1982. He says | 
he did so because he believes the act is no | 
longer needed because Louisiana has elimi- | 
nated discrimination in voter registration. | 

Treen claims that his public career has | 
been marked, not by a hostility toward blacks, | 
but by a belief that “the federal govern | 
has unconstitutionally overstepped its bounds | 
in many areas.” He points out that, as a gov- 
ernor elected mostly by whites, he appointed | 
more blacks to senior positions in state gov- | 
ernment than any of his predecessors. | 

Whether he ever spoke at a segregationist | 
rally years ago he claims he cannot recall. 
However, the Times-Picayune covered the | 
rally and reported that he spoke, although the 
newspaper gave no details of whast he said. 

“Dave Treen never had any racial motiva- | 
tion in his life.” he says, “I’m not ashamed of | 
anything I did. 

“But in all candor people have changed. I 
was born and raised in Louisiana. I would re- | 
write history if I could. Joining the States | 
Rights Party, for instance, was certainly a po- | 
litical mistake.” 
  

James Gill is a staff writer. 

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