Terrebone Parish NAACP v. Jindal[i]
On August 17, 2017, a federal
court ruled that a Louisiana Parish’s at-large voting system deprives black
voters of an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in violation
of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.
S. Constitution. The Plaintiffs are black voters residing in Terrebonne Parish,
Louisiana, and the local NAACP chapter. They challenged Louisiana’s use of an
at-large voting system for the 32nd Judicial District Court (32nd
JCD), a state court that has jurisdiction over Terrebonne Parish. The
challengers claimed that the use of at-large voting for elections to the 32nd
JDC denied black voters an equal opportunity to participate in the process and elect
their preferred candidates. They also claimed that a discriminatory purpose was
the motivating factor in the maintenance of the at-large voting system.
In an at-large election system members of a governing
body are elected to represent the entire population of a district. The
Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the
basis of race, color, or ethnicity. Vote dilution occurs when a minority group is submerged in a
larger population and is unable to elect their preferred candidates as a result
of racially polarized voting.
Although Black residents
constitute 20 percent of Terrebonne's population, no black candidate has ever
been elected to the 32nd JDC in a contested election. The evidence showed that
voting in Terrebonne is polarized along racial lines. White voters consistently
refuse to support the candidates favored by black voters. Black voters have
been unable to elect their preferred candidates. For more than two decades,
lawyers, citizens and civil rights organizations advocated for legislation to
provide black voters with an equal opportunity to elect their candidates of
choice. However, Louisiana lawmakers consistently rejected their proposals.
This was a textbook case of vote
dilution. In a lengthy and in-depth ruling the court “found a strong case of
vote dilution.” The court observed that “no [B]lack candidate who has faced
opposition in Terrebonne has been elected to an at-large position, and [B]lack
candidates have received incredibly minimal support from white voters, a
pattern which has been consistent over the course of more than twenty years.”
The court determined that “a motivating purpose in maintaining the at-large electoral
scheme for the 32nd JDC was to limit the opportunity of [B]lack individuals to
participate meaningfully and effectively in the political process to elect
judges of their choice.” The court also wrote “the persistent advocacy of the
[B]lack community [for a majority-Black single-member district], and the
equally persistent opposition to this advocacy which was partially based on
justifications that do not seem completely legitimate.”
“[The] victory is an example of what can be accomplished when
Black communities in partnership with civil rights groups like LDF and other
advocates defend our country’s core democratic values," said Victorien Wu, an Assistant
Counsel at Legal Defense Fund. “On behalf of Black communities, LDF will
continue to challenge voting practices that serve to weaken, discourage, or
deny people of their fundamental right to vote.” This is one of several cases
that shows discriminatory voting practices persist. They are not a relic of
some distant past as Chief Justice John Roberts disingenuously claimed in Shelby v. Holder which struck down key
provisions of the Voting Rights Act. Race discrimination is alive and well in
the electoral process.
[i] Leland Ware, Louis L.
Redding Professor of Law & Public Policy, University of Delaware
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