Supreme Court considers “coalition districts” under the Voting Rights Act

Bartlett v. Strickland

Background: North Carolina House District 18 straddles two counties. The state constitution says that counties should not be divided between districts. The District was created in 2003 and was justified as being necessary to satisfy the Voting Rights Act (VRA), since the new district contains enough black people to get black candidates elected. The state courts have in past held that the VRA trumps the state constitution on this issue. In May 2004, county officials from one of the counties sued to get the district lines redrawn.

The lawsuit arises because the district is not a “majority minority district,” where a minority group makes up a majority in the district (e.g. a district where blacks account for 51% of the population). Instead, the district is a “coalition district”: blacks make up 39.36% of the population, but they make up 53.7% of registered Democrats, and Democrats make up 59% of the population. Therefore blacks are able to get candidates elected. Thus, North Carolina argues, the district is justified under the VRA.

Most of the argument session focused on whether the 50% threshold generally imposed for VRA-justified districts was arbitrary or not. While a minority group, voting as a block, can get candidates elected if it constitutes 50% of the population, it can (obviously) get candidates elected with less than 50%, and it may not be able to get candidates elected even if it has over 50% if it doesn’t vote in a block. Justices (especially Justice Scalia) also had concerns about getting the judiciary branch involved in every districting decision.

The Court’s decision will likely rest on how willing the Justices are to look at specific cases as opposed to abstract theories, and how willing the Justices are to let the courts get involved in districting decisions. The Court’s decision will likely come well after this year’s election, meaning (as the county official noted) it will be enforced in a single election before 2010’s census.