Attorney Notes Pages 1357-1359

    4 -5{ } 
a,,norgh advoeates of the resuits approach indicate that there

are limits to its application, one does not see them readily ascertainable in the

Ianguage of the revised Seetior ? itself.

Thediseraimerabouipropoftlonairepresenlatlonislikeiytobevirtua.}i)'r

meaningless in praeiieal operetion. ln the seminal deeision in Baker v. carr, 369

U.S. 186 (1962), the Supreme Cou:-t rnete)5'heic thai matters' ol reapportionment

were not politieaj guestions. The Court drd not. however, Purport tc sdopt ani' 
l

speeific eonstitutional rule for apporttonrnent. The majoritl- suggested a good V'

1358

deal of flexibility for states, provided that they aeted in aceordance with some

rational policy. In his dissent, Justiee Frankfurter noted that diseussion of vote

ildebasementr or vote 'tdilution" eannot oecur in the abstraet. one needs an

underlying frame of referenee, a normative politieal theory' to determine what a

vote is worth. An inference he drew from the majority opinion in Baker was that

it did indeed have a theory of apportionment in mind when it deseribed the

Tennessee legislature as malapportioned - namely, one person, one vote'

Inexorably, the court was led to that simple manageable formula within two

years of the Baker decision.

As a practieal matter, one can reasonably prediet a similar scenario in the

interpretation of revised Section 2. The numbers will beeome increasingly

important to eourts adjudieating section 2 elaims because of the eomplexity of

the proeess of examining all the other faetors that would go into sueh a lawsuit'

The Iegislative change to a t'results" standard woqld be an invitation to the

eourts to give great weight to the numerical outcomes. The direetion of the

legislative change could well be interpreted as a green light for considering

impact and, as a matter of practieality, the eourts likely would tend to rely

increasingly on the manageable statistical data that would beeome available

during the course of the litigation. That is a natural development since eourts

will look to evolve objective, statistieal standards if the statute permits; use of

sueh rules reduees the eomplexity of eases, adds uniformity and narrows the

range of diseretion for a court. It also would tend to reinforee the importance of

naked statistieal evidenee.

one other ambiguity in the language of r.evised Section 2 is worthy of

mention. since the language prohibits praetiees that result in a denial or

abridgement of the right to vote, the section could be interpreted to apply to

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black-majority jurisdietions as well as to white-majority areas. Consequenfly,

one ean foresee cleims for assured representation by whites in formerly white-

majority eities such as Detroit. If these minority whites ean show that higher

tax rates or other soeial polieies by blaek eity administrations are likely to

eneourage further white flight, would that effeet be suffieient to state a cause

of aetion under revised Section 2? The potential for enhanced judicial oversight

of a multiplicity of loeal government poliey deeisions is expanded eonsiderably

by the results language of revised Section 2.

4. There seems to be an assumption underlying the revision of Seetion 2

that minority politieal interests will be better served by the elimination ot at-

large eleetions and the adoption of a distrieting system for local eleetions. The

reasoning seems to be that blaek eleeted offieials should represent the interests

of blaek constituents, and that blacks are diseriminated against if they are

required to seek politieal advantage by voting for more favorable white

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