Test Established on Legality of Voting Schemes (Washington Post)

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\ THE WASHINGTON
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POST JULY I, 1 986

Grounds to Sue

On Yoter Rights
Are Broatlened

By Al Kamen
Wrshh6m Pct St:tf Wrilcr

hst Established on l*grlity of Voting Schemes
North Carolina in Thonburg o.
Gingle.s, argued that the lower
court was improperly attempting to
guarantee mlnorities a minimum
nunrber of seats based on their per-
centage of the voting population in
the multimember districts, and that
redistricting plans should be accept-
ed if they do not impede the rights
of black voters to participate in the
electoral process.

Brennan said that the "mere loss
of an occasional election" by minor.:
ity candid;rtes does not mean a law
is discriminatory. Rather, it is the
"predictability" of such losses in a
setting- o( racially polarized bloc
voting that makes the difference.

The Jusrice Department's position
in this case sparked a highly unusual
response by the authors of the lg82
amendments to the law, including
Senate Majority Leader Robert J.
Dole (R-Kan.), who filed a brief with
the court saying that the administra-
tion's vierv misrepresented the pur-
pose of the bitl they wrote.

Dole, in a statement yesterday,
praised the decision, saying that tlie
court "hel'.red guarantee that racial
and ethnic minorities will be enti-

?he Supreme Court, ending a
hard-fought political and. legal battle
over the Voting Rights Act, yester-
day made it significantly easier for
minorities to successfully challenge
electoral schenrcs that lessen their
voting power

The'ruling, which eitablished a
broad new test for lower courts to
follow when considering claims of
voting rights discrimination, was a
clear setback for the Reagan admin-
istration's efforts to limit the scope
of the 1982 amendments to the
Voting Rights Act.

In an opinion byJustice WilliamJ.
Brennan Jr., the court said Con-
gress clearly intended that local
election laws may be found discrim-
inatory if their result, regardless of
their intent, is to reduce or dilute
black voting power.

Such dilution may occur, the
court said, when changes in election
law wind up submerging a politicalty
cohesive black district so that its
candidates are "usually, defeated by
whiter voting hs a bloc.

The cqrrt unanimously reirted
the administration's contention that
a jurisdiction can prove the absence
of discrimination by showing that

8co V0IINQ A0. CoL I

VO|IING, Fron Al
ninorities are occasionally elected
to office in a challenged district.
U9here the law "generally works to
dilute the minority vote," Brennan
rrote, "it cannot be defended on
3he ground that it sporadically and
serendipitously benefits minority
voters.'

Yesterday's ruling came in a case
involving a North Carolina redis-
tricting plan that provided for elect-
ing several legislators from single,
large voting districts with white
mafurities. Black voters challenged
the plan in court, saying that the
new multimember districts sub-
merged within them majority black
areas that might have been able to
elect their own candidates in a sin-
gle-member system.

A federal court agreed, saying
the use of such multimember dis-
tricts in most cases illegally tliluted
minority voting strength. North
Carolina appealed the ruling, argu-
ing that the plan was legal because
blacks had won elections in all those
districts.

The Justice Department, joining

tled to participate in the olectoral
process."

The administration also had ar-
gued that adpeals courts in voting
rights cases should give special
scrutiny to the findings of lower
courts. Brennan reicted that view
as well, saying that appeals courts
should review,these cases as they
would any other and overturn them
only when 'tlearly erroneous."
Brennarr said the North Carolina
federal court for the most part cor-
rectly applied the law to strike
down the plan.

Ilrennan said, however, thai in
one of the five districts involved in
the case, the lower court erred by
ignoring the significance of "sz.r-
tained success black voters have
experienced" in that district.

Although the justices were unan-
inrous in striking down virtually all
of the challenged North Carolina
scheme, the court split 5 to 4 over
the standards that should be used to
determine when such plans are il-
legal.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in
a concurring opinion for four jus-
tices, said the mailrity analysis

went too far, setting a legal stan-
.dard that creates a right to a form
of proportional representation.
O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice
Warren E. Burger and Justices
Lewis F. Powell Jr. and William H.
Rehnquist, agreed, however, that
the lower court .ruling should be
upheld for the most part.

Julius Chambers, who argued the
case for the NMCP Legal Defense
and Educational Fund Inc., said the '

'bpinion gives'us a powerful new
tool for ensuring the equal rights of
minorities to register, to vote and
to have their votes counted with
equal weight."

Assistant Attorney General Wil-
liam Bradford Reynolds and Solic-
itor General Charles Fried said
there were some important bright
spots for the administration in yes-
terday's decision. Reynolds said he
was "disappointed that the court did
not adopt our position wholesale.
On the other hand, we are extreme-
ly pleased" that the court did not
require proportional representation
by race and that it reversed the
lower court on one of the five con-
tested districts.