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Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Since 1982 Ellen D

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Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Since 1982 Ellen D University of Michigan Law School University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository Other Publications Faculty Scholarship 2005 Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Since 1982 Ellen D. Katz University of Michigan Law School, [email protected] Margaret Aisenbrey University of Michigan Law School Anna Baldwin University of Michigan Law School Emma Cheuse University of Michigan Law School Anna Weisbrodt University of Michigan Law School AFovaillolawble thi ats: ahndttps://r additepositionalor wyork.laws.umich at: htt.eps://rdu/otheepositr/84ory.law.umich.edu/other Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Election Law Commons, Law and Race Commons, Legislation Commons, Litigation Commons, and the Supreme Court of the United States Commons Recommended Citation Katz, Ellen D. Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Since 1982. M. Aisenbrey et al., co-author. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Law School, 2005. This Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Other Publications by an authorized administrator of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Since 1982 Final Report of the Voting Rights Initiative University of Michigan Law School Ellen Katz with Margaret Aisenbrey, Anna Baldwin, Emma Cheuse, and Anna Weisbrodt December 2005 The University of Michigan Law School Ann Arbor, Michigan © 2005 Ellen Katz and the Voting Rights Initiative Citations to this report: ELLEN KATZ ET AL., DOCUMENTING DISCRIMINATION IN VOTING: JUDICIAL flNDJNGS UNDER SECTION 2 OF THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT SINCE 1982, http://www.votingreport.org (Dec. 2005), reprintedin 39 U. MICH. J. L. REFOR M (forthcoming 2006). Citations to the data contained in the VRI Database: Ellen Katz and the Voting Rights Initiative, Voting Rights Initiative Database, www.votingreport.org. The Voting Rights Initiative of the Michigan Election Law Project FACULTY DIRECTOR: Ellen Katz LEAD S TUDENT DIRECTOR: Emma Cheuse TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: David Geerdes REPORT CONTRIBU TORS: Margaret Aisenbrey, Anna Baldwin, Krista Caner, Emma Cheuse, Kyle Paget, Joel Flaxman, Alaina Fotiu-Wojtowicz, Adam Gitlin, Dana Kaersvang, Elizabeth Liebschutz, Daniel Pearlberg, Liz Ryan, Jeremy Suhr, Rachel Warnick, Anna Weisbrodt, Sarah Wohlford DATABASE EDITORS: Krista Caner, David Jones, Anna Weisbrodt DATABASE RESEARCH DIRECTORS: Anna Baldwin, Kristen Boike. Sarah Bookbinder, Jennifer Carter, Natalia Cortez, Rachel Dobkin, Bernard Eskandari, Alaina Fotiu­ Wojtowicz, Akilah Green, Sonah Lee, Benjamin Potter, Jeremy Schwartz, Rebecca Teitelbaum, Rebecca Torres Mc Neill, Laura Yockey RESE ARCHERS: Bethany Ace, Margaret Aisenbrey, Lara Anthony, Sosun Bae, Adam Blumenkrantz, Kristen Boike, Marisa Bono, Adrienne Brooks, Timothy Caballero, Lucas Caldwell-McMillan, Krista Caner, Ramsey Chamie, Joann Chang, Daniel DeLorenzo, Kyle Paget, Esther Farkas, Thomas Ferrone, Joel Flaxman, Alaina Fotiu-Wojtowicz, Matthew Fox, Mitoshi Fujio-White, Amanda Garcia, Adam Gitlin, Jenna Goldenberg, Arielle Greenbaum, Kyra Hazilla, Jennifer Hill, Sarah Hinchliff, Millicent Hoffman, Neal Jagtap, David Jones, Shari Katz, Craig Komanecki, Poonam Kumar, Joseph Lake, Jeffrey Landau, Grace Lee, Michael Lee, Julianna Lee, Elizabeth Liebschutz, Zachariah Lindsey, Alexandra Magill, Melissa Manning, Megan Mardy, Vannesa Martinez, Kerry-Ann McLean, Mary Mock, Jaime Olin, David Osei, Daniel Pearlberg, Amanda Pedvin, Amanda Perwin, Benjamin Potter, Jennifer Reid, Eunice Rho, Elizabeth Richards, Abby Rubinson, Elizabeth Rucker, Elizabeth Ryan, David Sack, Monica Saxena, Elizabeth Seger, Maneesh Sharma, Karen Shen, Elizabeth Simson, Mia Solvesson, Jessica Stoddard, Jeremy Suhr, Daniel Tenny, Cathy Tran, Genevieve Vose, Kyle Walther, Thomas Ward, Rachel Warnick, Anna Weisbrodt, Jamie Weitzel, Larissa Werhnyak, Cyrus Wilkes, Sarah Wohlford, Joe Wright TECHNICAL ASSIS TANCE: Thomas Ferrone, Nicholas George, Adam Gitlin, Naomi Goldberg, Christopher Kirkwood-Watts, Shelley Merkin, Molly Moser, Katherine Redman, Taylor Rielly, Amethyst Smith, Susan West Contents Introduction l The Project: Background, Goals, and Methods STATUTORY BACKGROUND 2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 5 RESEARCH PROJECT AND DESIGN 6 The Findings: Documenting Discrimination OVERALL RESULTS 8 The Numbers 8 The Trends n THE GINGLES THRESHOLD 12 Gingles I: Sufficiently Large and Geographically Compact 13 Gingles II and III: Racial Bloc Voting 16 THE SENATE FACTORS 20 FACTOR i: History of Official Discrimination that To uched the Right to Vote 20 FACTOR 2: Extent of Racially Polarized Voting 32 FACTOR 3: Use of Enhancing Practices: At-large Elections, Majority Vote Requirements 32 FACTOR 4: Candidate Slating 33 FACTOR 5: Ongoing Effects of Discrimination (Education, Employment, Health) 35 FACTOR 6: Racial Appeals in Campaigns 37 FACTOR 7: Success of Minority Candidates 42 FACTOR 8: SignificantLa ck of Responsiveness 44 FACTOR 9: Tenuous Policy Justification for the Challenged Practice 47 Proportionality as a Tenth Factor? 49 Notes 51 Introduction This year marks the fortieth anniversary of one of the most remarkable and consequen­ tial pieces of congressional legislation ever enacted. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ("the VRA" ) targeted massive disfranchisement of African-American citizens in numerous Southern states. It imposed measures drastic in scope and extraordinary in effect.The VRA eliminated the use of literacy tests and other "devices" that Southern jurisdictions had long employed to prevent black residents from registering and voting.1 The VRA imposed on these jurisdictions onerous obligations to prove to federal officials that pro­ posed changes to their electoral system would not discriminate against minority voters.2 Resistance was immediate both in thestreets and in the courts, but the VRA withstood the challenge.3 The result was staggering. The VRA ended the long-entrenched and virtually total exclusion of African Americans from political participation in the South. Black voter registration rose and black participation followed such that, by the early 1970s, courts routinely observed that black voters throughout the South were registering and voting without interference. Similar benefits accrued to non-English speaking voters, particularly to Latino voters in the Southwest, after Congress amended the VRA to protect specifiedlanguage minorities in 1975. This increased participation exposed less blatant inequalities and problems-complex issues such as racial vote dilution, the contours of which courts are still tackling today. These persistent problems have led Congress to extend and expand the VRA each time its non-permanent provisions were due to expire. The ban on literacy tests, as well as the "predearance" provisions contained in Section 5, initially were enacted to last for only five years. Nonetheless, Congress decided to extend these provisions in 1970, again in 1975, and fortwenty-five more years in 1982. During the last renewal, Congress also expanded the terms of the core permanent provision of the Voting Rights Act- Section 2. Four decades after their original enactment, the non-permanent provisions of the VRA are once again set to expire.4 Congress must soon determine whether it should renew these provisions, make substantive alterations to them, or simply let them lapse. To make this determination, Congress needs information about the past and present status of minority participation in the political process. The Vo ting Rights Initiative ("VRI") at the University of Michigan Law School was created during the winter of 2005 to help address this need and to help inform the nationwide discussion on voting rights now under way. A cooperative research venture involving 100 students working under faculty direction set out to produce a detailed portrait of litigation brought since 1982 under Section 2. This Report evaluates the results of that survey. The comprehensive data set may be found in an analytically structured as well as searchable form at http:// www.votingreport.org. The aim of this report, the accompanying website, and the project as a whole is to contribute to a criti­ cal understandingof current opportunities for effective political participation on the part of those minorities the Voting Rights Act seeks to protect. Documenting Discrimination 1 The Project: Background, Goals, and Methods STATUTORY BACKGROUND The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted in response to th e continued, massive, and unconstitutional exclusion of African Americans from the franchise. Despite the ratifi­ cation in 1870 of the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibits denying or abridging the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, state voting officials continued to devise mechanisms to exclude African Americans from the fran­ chise. 5 Judicial invalidation of one such practice often prompted the creation of another to achieve the same result. Moving from outright violence to explicit race-based exclu­ sions to "grandfather clauses;' literacy tests, and redistricting practices, many former Confederate states (and several others) successfully prevented African Americans from participating in elections fornea
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