Justices Nullify Racial Districts in Texas, N.C.

In another setback for black and Latino lawmakers, the Supreme Court struck down “majority-minority” congressional districts in Texas and North Carolina on Thursday and said again that electoral boundaries may not be drawn strictly along racial lines.

The 5-4 rulings mark the third time in four years that the court’s conservative majority has condemned “racial gerrymandering.” This time, the justices rejected a Clinton administration claim that the Voting Rights Act gives states a compelling reason to shape districts along racial lines so that minorities can be elected.

“Race-neutral, traditional districting considerations [must] predominate over racial ones,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said for the court. The government should not convey “the message that political identity is, or should be, predominantly racial.”

Civil rights advocates denounced the rulings as a blow to equal representation and said that it cast doubt on the fate of many African Americans elected since 1990.

But political analysts said that most of the 40 members of the Congressional Black Caucus are not at risk. Many were elected from big cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta where black voters are concentrated in large enough numbers to elect minority lawmakers.

In the rural areas of the South, some districts may need to be redrawn. There, black incumbents may find themselves running in districts that have a large percentage of African Americans but less than 50%.

David Bositis, a political analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black think tank, told the Associated Press that he was unhappy with the decisions, but added: “It’s not like the black membership of Congress is going to be going from 40 to zero.”

Conservative scholars praised the court for insisting that the government treat citizens just as voters, not as members of a racial or ethnic bloc.

“All Americans should celebrate” the decisions, said Abigail Thernstrom, a voting-rights expert with the Institute for Justice. It “closes the door on a sorry story of race-based decision-making for purposes of political representation.”

The court’s opinion also applies to electoral districts for state legislatures, city councils, school boards and judges.

After 1990, the Justice Department pressed states to redraw boundaries in a way that would create districts with black majorities.

As a result, North Carolina’s 12 members of Congress include its first two black representatives of this century. Texas created majority-black districts in Dallas and Houston as well as a majority Latino district in Houston among its 30 districts.

But no sooner did civil rights leaders celebrate those gains than the Supreme Court changed direction. In a surprise ruling three years ago, the five-member conservative majority said that racial gerrymandering is generally unconstitutional.

Last year, the court applied that ruling in Georgia and struck down a majority-black district represented by Rep. Cynthia McKinney, a Democrat.

Meanwhile, white voters renewed their challenges to the two majority-black districts in North Carolina and the three Texas districts.

By the same 5-4 margin, the court agreed that they are unconstitutional.

“Not only are the shapes of the districts bizarre, they also exhibit utter disregard of city limits, local election precincts and voter tabulation district lines,” O’Connor said of the two districts in Houston and one in Dallas.

However, not all majority-black districts are unconstitutional, she noted. If African Americans and Latinos are concentrated in a city or area of a state, a district can be drawn for the purpose of encompassing such a community, she said.

Within the Supreme Court, Thursday’s decisions follow the same pattern as in recent affirmative action cases. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and O’Connor have insisted that public officials may not use race as a means for making decisions, regardless of whether it helps or hurts minorities.

Of the five, however, O’Connor has left a little wiggle room for herself. In a short separate statement, she said that sometimes race may be considered, so long as it is not the “predominant” factor.

The dissenters, Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, called the majority’s view “seriously misguided” because it ignores the obvious difference between racial oppression by a majority and racial inclusion of a minority.

“The inevitable consequence of the court’s action will be to produce a Congress that is increasingly white at a time that the nation is becoming increasingly diverse,” said Laughlin McDonald, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Southern regional office in Atlanta. The court’s action “will further cripple one of the most effective pieces of civil rights legislation that this country has ever enacted.”

President Clinton said that he was disappointed by the rulings because it could diminish the political clout of minority voters. “They need to work even harder to make sure their voices are heard,” he said.

The two decisions (Bush vs. Vera, 94-805, and Shaw vs. Hunt, 94-923) continue the Clinton administration’s losing streak in the Supreme Court on cases involving race.

Since 1993, Justice Department lawyers have repeatedly argued that “race-conscious decision-making” is permissible in areas such as federal contracting, college scholarships, school desegregation and voting rights. In every instance, however, the narrow Supreme Court majority has disagreed.

In the Texas case, the justices let stand oddly shaped districts that were drawn to protect entrenched incumbents. Districts may be drawn for partisan purposes, the court said, but not for racial reasons.

ACLU Legal Director Steven Shapiro condemned the decisions for “perpetuating an unfortunate double standard” that protects white incumbents and knocks down newly elected minority representatives.

While the justices did not say precisely what the states must do now, the rulings could force officials in North Carolina and Texas to redraw several districts in time for the fall elections.

The Texas districts in question are represented by Democratic Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson, Sheila Jackson Lee and Gene Green. The two North Carolina seats in question are those of Democratic Reps. Melvin Watt and Eva Clayton.

The decisions have no effect on California’s 52 congressional districts. When the court acted last year to strike down Georgia’s congressional redistricting plan, it upheld California’s plan.

Nor are the rulings likely to have any implications for the legality of legislative districts established in California by a state Supreme Court master after Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature failed to agree on a redistricting plan. Generally, the plans adopted after the 1990 census enhanced minority representation by emphasizing the drawing of compact districts and maintaining local communities of interest.

Times political writer Bill Stall contributed to this story from Los Angeles.