Memo to Jones from Cox RE: Summary of Case

    EDK MEMORANDUM 
To: Elaine R, Jones 
From: Todd A. €ox /W( 
Re: Cromartie v. Hunt 

Date: March 29, 2000 
  

Cromartie v. Hunt is a Fourteenth Amendment challenge to the constitutionality of North 

Carolina’s First and Twelfth Congressional Districts under the theories established in Shaw v. 

Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993). LDF and our cooperating law firm of Ferguson, Stein, Wallas, 

Gresham & Sumter, represent African-American and white voters who have intervened to defend 

the districts’ constitutionality. This memorandum will briefly summarize the history of the case 

and place the March 7, 2000 district court decision and the March 16, 2000 Supreme Court stay 

in the context of our overall voting rights work. The lower court decision and Supreme Court 
stay order is attached. 

BACKGROUND 

Shaw v. Reno and the Challenge to North Carolina’s Congressional Redistricting 

White voters filed a lawsuit under the Fourteenth Amendment challenging North 

Carolina’s 1992 congressional redistricting plan that sent the State’s first African-American 

Representatives to Congress since Reconstruction. In that case, Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 

(1993), the U.S. Supreme Court held for the first time that white voters could bring an action 

under the Fourteenth Amendment by alleging that a district is so extraordinarily bizarre in shape 

that, without sufficient justification, it could only be viewed as an effort to classify voters on the 

basis of race. The case went back to the district court for a trial after which the district court 

upheld the Twelfth District’s constitutionality. Again on appeal, in Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899 

(1996), the U.S. Supreme Court this time invalidated the North Carolina Congressional 

redistricting plan, striking the Twelfth Congressional District as unconstitutional. 

Following the decision, the North Carolina General Assembly adopted a revised plan that 

created a new Twelfth District that was only 47 percent African-American in total population 

(originally it was 53 percent total African-American population). Although the First 

Congressional District in the 1992 Plan was never determined to be unconstitutional, the First 

District was also redrawn. While it remained a majority-African-American district, its total 

African-American population was reduced to 50.3 percent (originally it was 57.3 percent total 

African-American population). In the next congressional elections, incumbent Representative 

Melvin Watt was re-elected to represent the new Twelfth Congressional District and incumbent 

Representative Eva Clayton was re-elected to represent the new First Congressional District. 

This plan was the subject of the challenge filed in Cromartie v. Hunt. 

Summary Judgment and Supreme Court Appeal in Cromartie v. Hunt 

A group of plaintiffs, comprised in part of the same voters who brought the initial Shaw  



  

case, filed Cromartie v. Hunt, seeking to have the new Twelfth and First Congressional Districts 

ruled unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. After a hearing in March 1998, during which the 

court refused to hear our arguments on the merits of the case and on the pending intervention 

motions, the court ruled without a trial that the Twelfth District was unconstitutional. Even 

though it was not a majority-African-American district, the three-judge district court held that 

race was the primary motivation for District Twelve’s lines, as shown by its shape and the 

inclusion of certain majority-African-American voting precincts and the exclusion of selected 

majority-white voting precincts. The three-judge district court also ordered the parties to proceed 

to trial on the constitutionality of the First District. The court permanently barred the State from 

using the redistricting plan and ordered the State to devise a new congressional plan before the 

1998 elections. 

Consequently, the State developed a new plan, but also appealed the three-judge district 

court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Affer the deadline for our clients to file an appeal of 

the court’s opinion, the three-judge district court finally granted our third motion to intervene. 

Therefore, we filed and the Supreme Court granted our motion to intervene as parties in the 

Supreme Court to press our clients’ rights on appeal and defend the Twelfth District. Meanwhile, 

elections were held under the new redistricting plan. Congressman Mel Watt and 

Congresswoman Eva Clayton ran under the new plan and won. 

On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed the district court judgment and held that the 

plaintiff-appellees were not entitled to summary judgment and that the Twelfth District was an 

unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Rather, the Court pointed to evidence that, in creating the 

Twelfth District, the North Carolina General Assembly “did no more than create a district of 

strong partisan Democrats,” Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U.S. ___, 119 S. Ct. 1545, 1551 

(1999), holding that “a jurisdiction may engage in constitutional political gerrymandering, even if 

it so happens that the most loyal Democrats happen to be black Democrats and even if the State 

were conscious of that fact.” Cromartie, 119 S. Ct. at 1547 (emphasis in the original) (citing 

Bush v. Vera, 517 U.S. 952, 968 (1996); Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U.S. 899, 905 (1996); Miller v. 

Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 916 (1995); Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 646 (1993))'. The Court 
concluded: 

Evidence that blacks constitute even a supermajority in one congressional district 

while amounting to less than a plurality in a neighboring district will not, by itself] 

suffice to prove that a jurisdiction was motivated by race in drawing its district 

lines when the evidence also shows a high correlation between race and party 
preference. 

Cromartie, at 119 S. Ct. at 1547. 

  

'LDF represented defendant-intervenor parties in Bush v. Vera, Shaw v. Hunt, Miller v. 

Johnson, and Shaw v. Reno and played a critical role in helping defend the districts challenged in 
these cases. 

 



  

THE TRIAL ON REMAND AND THE CURRENT APPEAL 

Although the Supreme Court issued its decision in Hunt v. Cromartie, in May, 1999 and 

despite the urgency of the State’s election schedule, the district court did not issue its discovery 

schedule until August 23, 1999, three months later. The district court set an expedited discovery 

and trial schedule and held a three day trial in November 1999. 

On March 8, 2000, over three months after an expedited November trial and ten months 

after the Supreme Court’s reversal of the entry of summary judgment, the district court issued its 

opinion. In the time that the trial court took to issue its opinion, candidates filed to run in, and the 

State began preparations for the May 2, 2000 primary. Moreover, the first absentee ballots for 

the congressional primary election would be cast on March 18, 2000. Based in large part on the 

reasoning used in its prior opinion, the district court again found that the Twelfth District was 

unconstitutional and barred the use of the district in the upcoming May 2, 2000 elections. 

However, the court found the First District constitutional. While ruling that the First District was 

a racial gerrymander, the court held that the district was narrowly tailored to meet North 

Carolina’s compelling state interest of complying with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 

U.S.C. §1973 

On behalf of our clients, LDF and the State of North Carolina, respectively, filed in the 

district court notices of appeal and requests for a stay pending appeal of the district court order 

striking the Twelfth District. Given the urgency of the election schedule, we also filed stay papers 

in the Supreme Court. In addition to discussing the irreparable injury that the state and the public 

in general would suffer if the state were forced to delay the upcoming election and redistrict, our 

stay papers focused on the particular injury African-American voters would suffer in any electoral 

delay. On Monday, March 13, 2000, the district court denied our motion for a stay. On March 

16, 2000, the Supreme Court granted our stay pending an appeal of the lower court decision 

ruling that the Twelfth District was unconstitutional. Our jurisdictional statement is due May 8, 
2000. 

CONCLUSION 

The grant of the stay will permit the May 2nd primary to proceed uninterrupted and will 

permit the state to use the current district lines, including the Twelfth District, for the election. 

This 1s a very significant victory for our clients and minority voters in North Carolina and marks 

only the third time the Court has granted a stay of an adverse district court judgment in a case 

brought under the Shaw doctrine.> As we argued before the Court, altering the State’s regular 

election calendar, particularly at this late date contributes to low voter turnout. This result is 

exacerbated for minority groups, such as African-Americans, because they tend to be poorer and 

  

“The other two cases were Hays v. Louisiana, the challenge to the Louisiana 

congressional redistricting plan, and Johnson v. Miller, the challenge to the Georgia congressional 

redistricting plan. LDF represented defendant-intervenor parties in both cases. 

3 

 



less well educated than their white counterparts, and, consequently, tend to have lower levels of 

political participation. 

On appeal, it will be particularly critical to protect the constitutionality of the First and 

Twelfth Districts so that they can serve as the benchmarks for the creation of the new 

congressional district lines following the post-2000 Census. In addition, the preservation of the 

majority-African-American First Congressional District in the lower court is an important victory. 

While the district court found that race predominated in the creation of the First District, it also 

found that the decision to create the district was narrowly tailored to meet a compelling 

justification under the Voting Rights Act. This is only the second time that a district court has 

specifically found, in a Shaw challenge, that a electoral district is narrowly tailored to meet a 

compelling state interest in complying with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 

1973.7 Tt is not yet clear if plaintiffs will appeal this part of the district court ruling. 

Please contact me with any questions. 

Attachments 

Ted Shaw 

Norman Chachkin 

Jacqueline Berrien 

Patricia Grayson 

Herschel Johnson 

Erica Teasley 

Costa Varsos 

D.C. Staff 

  

>The first time was in King v. State Bd. of Elections, 979 F. Supp. 619, 621-27 (N.D. Ill. 

1997), summ. aff., 522 U.S. 1087 (1998) (per curiam) where the district court found that the 

Fourth Congressional District was narrowly tailored to meet the State of Illinois’ state interest in 

complying with Section 2. See also DeWitt v. Wilson, 856 F. Supp. 1409, 1413-15 (E.D. Cal. 

1994), aff'd, 515 U.S. 1170 (1995) (district court found that the California redistricting plan was 

not an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, but that even if strict scrutiny were required “we 

conclude that this California redistricting plan has been narrowly tailored to meet a compelling 
state interest.”).  



*x JOB STATUS neror ff) AS OF MAR 2o@o 9 PM PAGE. 01 

NAACP LEGAL DEF FUND 

  

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TDF NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC 

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Ted Shaw 
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Jacqueline Berrien NAACP-LDF 
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Patricia Grayson 
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Elaine Jones NAACP-LDF 
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Erica Teasley NAACP-LDF 
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From: Todd Cox  202- 82-1300 

Subject: Cromartie v. Hunt. 

Date: March 29, 2000 Time: 1:18 PM 

Pages: 61, including this ce ver sheet. 

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