Letter from Senator Dole regarding his amicus brief in Gingles v. Thornburg, September 17, 1985

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Letter from Senator Dole regarding his amicus brief in Gingles v. Thornburg, September 17, 1985

Description (Dublin Core)

In this letter, Senator Bob Dole describes the amicus brief he filed with a bipartisan group of senators in the Gingles v. Thornburg Supreme Court case which was examining Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Dole also includes news editorials from multiple publications that were written in support of his actions.

Date (Dublin Core)

1985-09-17

Date Created (Dublin Core)

1985-09-17

Congress (Dublin Core)

99th (1985-1987)

Topics (Dublin Core)

See all items with this valueRacial gerrymandering

See all items with this valueElection districts

Policy Area (Curation)

Civil Rights and Liberties, Minority Issues

Creator (Dublin Core)

Dole, Robert J., 1923-2021

Record Type (Dublin Core)

correspondence

Names (Dublin Core)

See all items with this valueUnited States. Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982

Rights (Dublin Core)

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

Language (Dublin Core)

eng

Collection Finding Aid (Dublin Core)

https://dolearchivecollections.ku.edu/index.php?p=collections/findingaid&id=14&q=

Physical Location (Dublin Core)

Collection 006, Box 10, Folder 9

Institution (Dublin Core)

Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

Archival Collection (Dublin Core)

Robert J. Dole Senate Papers-Press Related Materials, 1961-1996

Full Text (Extract Text)

(page 1)
This document is from the collections at the Dole Archives, University of Kansas http://dolearchives.ku.edu
BOB DOLE KANSAS
STANDING COMMITTEES: AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY FINANCE RULES
United States Senate WASHINGTON, DC 20510 September 17, 1985
(Break)
Dear Friend:
Last month I joined a bipartisan group of members of Congress in filing an amicus brief in the Gingles v. Thornburg voting rights case before the Supreme Court.
As you know, Gingles represents the first major test of the 1982 amendments to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Our brief, which is at odds with the U.S. Department of Justice and the North Carolina Attorney General, urges the Supreme Court to uphold an earlier court finding that blacks have indeed been wrongly denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process in North Carolina.
A three-judge court panel maintained that under the totality of circumstances, North Carolina's use of large, multi-member state legislative districts does not provide for equal opportunity for blacks. For instance, the panel found that blacks have had to "single shot" their votes for a single candidate - thereby giving up their right to participate in the election of other members of their district's delegation.
I agreed and, with the other principal proponents and authors of the 1982 amendments, filed the amicus brief. Similar briefs were also filed by the Republican National Committee and the Republican governor of North Carolina, James Martin.
As I mentioned earlier, our position is at odds with the Justice Department and the top legal officer in North Carolina. Those parties believe that since some blacks have been elected to public office under North Carolina's districting structure, the requirements of Section 2 are satisfied.
But, as the principal author of the 1982 amendments to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, I know the intent of Congress in adopting the amendments in 1982. I have a strong interest in seeing the Supreme Court enforce Section 2 as it was intended: To guarantee, by statute, that black Americans have the right to equally participate in our country's political process, and to provide for fair and effective standards in enforcing that right.
s-press_010_009_001_A1b.pdf
(Page 2)
These actions - the amicus briefs filed by the members of Congress, the RNC and Gov. Martin - again show that we in the Republican Party are not insensitive, and will be there in our continuing fight for freedom, justice and equal opportunity.
Sincerely,
BOB DOLE Majority Leader
P.S. -- I have enclosed several copies of editorials written in support of our action. You may be interested in these for background purposes.
BD: sb
(Page 3)
LOS ANGELES TIMES; September 6, 1985
A Fight Goes On
Three years ago Congress overwhelmingly approved extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a recognition that" many minority voters still needed federal protections despite the progress made since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the original and historic legislation.
The Reagan Administration vigorously opposed the extension until an 11th-hour acknowledgement. that Congress would prevail and federal surveillance would continue. Now the Administration is trying to undo what Congress intended.
The Justice Department has proposed new rules that would weaken the enforcement of the law. Under current policies, local officials must prove that election changes such as redistricting, annexation or at-large balloting do not dilute the vote of minorities in keeping with the principle of one vote equaling another. The revised rules would require the voters who challenge the changes to prove discrimination- a provision that contradicts the protections provided by Congress in 1982.
Under other proposed revisions, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III would have the authority to approve changes that result in discrimination if the "retrogression" was "unavoidable." That provision conflicts with the law. Discrimination is always avoidable, and always illegal.
Although the days of physical harassment, poll taxes and literacy tests-with questions such as how many bubbles does a bar of soap have-have ended, minorities lose political clout because of gerrymandering and other schemes. The Voting Rights Act, which applies to nine Southern states and parts of 10 other states, was extended to 1997
to protect the equal opportunity to participate in the political process.
But the Administration is against strong enforcement both in policy and in court. After a federal court ruled that a North Carolina state redistricting plan discriminated against black voters, the Justice Department intervened to support the redrawn lines. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear the case next month in the first major test of the 1982 law.
To support its position, the Administration has relied on language in a compromise that broke the impasse when the Senate Judiciary Committee considered extending the 1982 law. (Underlined) Sen. Bob Dole (End of Underlined) (R-Kan.), who proposed the compromise, has dramatically opposed the Administration's mis- interpretation in a friend-of-the-court brief. The brief was signed by four other Republicans. including Sen. Charles McC. Mathias of Maryland. and five Democrats, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. And North Carolina's Republican governor, James G. Martin, and the Republican National Committee have filed briefs in opposition to the Administration's position.
During the debate over the extension, Republicans like Dole and Mathias specified that the law would not require the election of minorities in quota-like proportions, but that minorities should have equal access to the electoral process- in other words, a fair shake at the polls and on the ballot.
The (start of underline) Reagan Administration should follow the lead of these enlightened Republicans (end of underline) in both the North Carolina case and in the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1982.
(Page 4)
NEW YORK TIMES; September 6, 1985
Still Fighting Voting Rights
President Reagan, who won by a landslide in 1980 and 1984, lost another kind of voting battle by another kind of landslide in 1982. That's when Congress, despite his opposition, voted overwhelmingly to strengthen the Voting Rights Act. The votes, 389 to 24 in the House and 85 to 8 in the Senate, so buried the opposition that Mr. Reagan reluctantly signed the bill rather than have his veto overridden. Now the Administration seeks to win in the Supreme Court what it lost in Congress. In a case from North Carolina, it has asked the justices to interpret the law in precisely the ways Congress rejected so resoundingly.
(start of bracket) It's not even a partisan initiative; other Republicans rush to dissociate themselves from it. Sena- tor Robert Dole, the majority leader, and others who guided the voting bill to passage have responded with their own brief urging the Court not to trim the law to Administration specifications. Such a brief dramatizes the Administration's estrangement from civil rights, mainstream politics and the bipartisan national sense of electoral justice that inspired the 1982 law. (end of Bracket)
The law arose because of a 1980 Supreme Court ruling that anyone trying to challenge state voting rules had to prove discriminatory intent on the part of state lawmakers. Gerrymanders and other de- vices could nullify the growing black vote, yet showing they were intended to discriminate was an impossible burden.
Consider a typical tactic, the multi-member election district. Smaller districts might enable black neighborhoods to elect candidates of their choice. Submerging those populations within large areas with white majorities meant that fewer or no blacks would be elected. But who could prove a discriminatory motive?
Congress did not outlaw at-large districts or any other voting practice. It said they were invalid if, based on all the evidence, the political process was "not equally open" to minorities. Electoral success or lack of it was to be one of the criteria but, significantly, the law disavowed any minority right to representation in proportion to population. In other words, no racial quotas.
In the North Carolina case a Federal court weighed all the evidence, including a century of discrimination, and found that several at-large districts violated the law. The Justice Department, joining the state's appeal, argued that since blacks have made gains in two recent elections - up from 4 legislators to 16 - the lower court must have been using a forbidden quota as a yardstick.
Do a few victories for blacks exonerate North Carolina's practices? On its face, the 1982 law says no. Congress made clear in the law and committee reports that, just as no one factor is enough to condemn a districting plan, no single factor exonerates it. Any other reading of the law would give greater weight to a handful of successes than to decades of unfair defeats, and under conditions that threaten to make them temporary.
(Start of bracket) The same Justice Department that tried to obstruct the bill has the nerve to ask the Court, in interpreting the law, to give more weight to the views of Senator Orrin Hatch, who led the eight senators who opposed it, than to Senator Dole and the 85 senators who voted for it. The Department characterizes them as a "faction."
Ignoring the usual canons for construing statutes, the Justice Department must strain to read the 1982 law the way it does. For the Administration to insist on straining is to flout what Senator Dole and his "faction" know: decency and fairness to underrepresented minorities is always, regardless of party, the best politics.(End of bracket)
(Page 5)
Court Should Listen to Mr. Dole
FOR five years now, the Reagan administration has been telling the U.S. Supreme Court how civil rights cases should be decided. Now a bipartisan congressional coalition led by Sen. Bob Dole, R. Kan., has done the same. Mr. Dole and nine others last week filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying the administration's position in a North Carolina voting rights case blatantly misrepresents Congress' intent in amendments made three years ago to the Voting Rights Act.
The brief will win Mr. Dole and his four Republican colleagues in the coalition no political points with the administration. It effectively yanks the logical props from beneath the administration's position In the case at hand - that Congress never intended the 1982 amendments to apply to cases such as the North Carolina one. But (start underline) the congressional brief shows some Republicans are willing to put their money where their mouth is on matters of Importance to black Americans.(end underline)
At issue is North Carolina's dubious practice of electing more than one legislator from a given district, a practice that in the past has deprived minorities of adequate representation. A federal appellate court last year used the 1982 amendments to strike down that state's latest redistricting plan, thus thrusting the matter before the Supreme Court. Mr. Dole and his colleagues assert that Congress Intended the '82 amendments - the gist of which is that the courts could find local election laws discriminatory If their result penalized minority voters - to apply in instances such as this one.
(Start underline) Mr. Dole and his Republican colleagues, especially, deserve credit for guts (end underline) and savvy In attacking an administration position that's morally Incorrect and politically inept - multi-member districts such as North Carolina's historically have hurt Republicans as well as racial minorities. One hopes the high court, which properly must decide the law of the situation while ignoring its political aspects, takes their brief as prima facie evidence of Congress' true intent.

(page 1)
This document is from the collections at the Dole Archives, University of Kansas http://dolearchives.ku.edu
BOB DOLE KANSAS
STANDING COMMITTEES: AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY FINANCE RULES
United States Senate WASHINGTON, DC 20510 September 17, 1985
(Break)
Dear Friend:
Last month I joined a bipartisan group of members of Congress in filing an amicus brief in the Gingles v. Thornburg voting rights case before the Supreme Court.
As you know, Gingles represents the first major test of the 1982 amendments to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Our brief, which is at odds with the U.S. Department of Justice and the North Carolina Attorney General, urges the Supreme Court to uphold an earlier court finding that blacks have indeed been wrongly denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process in North Carolina.
A three-judge court panel maintained that under the totality of circumstances, North Carolina's use of large, multi-member state legislative districts does not provide for equal opportunity for blacks. For instance, the panel found that blacks have had to "single shot" their votes for a single candidate - thereby giving up their right to participate in the election of other members of their district's delegation.
I agreed and, with the other principal proponents and authors of the 1982 amendments, filed the amicus brief. Similar briefs were also filed by the Republican National Committee and the Republican governor of North Carolina, James Martin.
As I mentioned earlier, our position is at odds with the Justice Department and the top legal officer in North Carolina. Those parties believe that since some blacks have been elected to public office under North Carolina's districting structure, the requirements of Section 2 are satisfied.
But, as the principal author of the 1982 amendments to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, I know the intent of Congress in adopting the amendments in 1982. I have a strong interest in seeing the Supreme Court enforce Section 2 as it was intended: To guarantee, by statute, that black Americans have the right to equally participate in our country's political process, and to provide for fair and effective standards in enforcing that right.
s-press_010_009_001_A1b.pdf
(Page 2)
These actions - the amicus briefs filed by the members of Congress, the RNC and Gov. Martin - again show that we in the Republican Party are not insensitive, and will be there in our continuing fight for freedom, justice and equal opportunity.
Sincerely,
BOB DOLE Majority Leader
P.S. -- I have enclosed several copies of editorials written in support of our action. You may be interested in these for background purposes.
BD: sb
(Page 3)
LOS ANGELES TIMES; September 6, 1985
A Fight Goes On
Three years ago Congress overwhelmingly approved extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a recognition that" many minority voters still needed federal protections despite the progress made since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the original and historic legislation.
The Reagan Administration vigorously opposed the extension until an 11th-hour acknowledgement. that Congress would prevail and federal surveillance would continue. Now the Administration is trying to undo what Congress intended.
The Justice Department has proposed new rules that would weaken the enforcement of the law. Under current policies, local officials must prove that election changes such as redistricting, annexation or at-large balloting do not dilute the vote of minorities in keeping with the principle of one vote equaling another. The revised rules would require the voters who challenge the changes to prove discrimination- a provision that contradicts the protections provided by Congress in 1982.
Under other proposed revisions, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III would have the authority to approve changes that result in discrimination if the "retrogression" was "unavoidable." That provision conflicts with the law. Discrimination is always avoidable, and always illegal.
Although the days of physical harassment, poll taxes and literacy tests-with questions such as how many bubbles does a bar of soap have-have ended, minorities lose political clout because of gerrymandering and other schemes. The Voting Rights Act, which applies to nine Southern states and parts of 10 other states, was extended to 1997
to protect the equal opportunity to participate in the political process.
But the Administration is against strong enforcement both in policy and in court. After a federal court ruled that a North Carolina state redistricting plan discriminated against black voters, the Justice Department intervened to support the redrawn lines. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear the case next month in the first major test of the 1982 law.
To support its position, the Administration has relied on language in a compromise that broke the impasse when the Senate Judiciary Committee considered extending the 1982 law. (Underlined) Sen. Bob Dole (End of Underlined) (R-Kan.), who proposed the compromise, has dramatically opposed the Administration's mis- interpretation in a friend-of-the-court brief. The brief was signed by four other Republicans. including Sen. Charles McC. Mathias of Maryland. and five Democrats, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. And North Carolina's Republican governor, James G. Martin, and the Republican National Committee have filed briefs in opposition to the Administration's position.
During the debate over the extension, Republicans like Dole and Mathias specified that the law would not require the election of minorities in quota-like proportions, but that minorities should have equal access to the electoral process- in other words, a fair shake at the polls and on the ballot.
The (start of underline) Reagan Administration should follow the lead of these enlightened Republicans (end of underline) in both the North Carolina case and in the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1982.
(Page 4)
NEW YORK TIMES; September 6, 1985
Still Fighting Voting Rights
President Reagan, who won by a landslide in 1980 and 1984, lost another kind of voting battle by another kind of landslide in 1982. That's when Congress, despite his opposition, voted overwhelmingly to strengthen the Voting Rights Act. The votes, 389 to 24 in the House and 85 to 8 in the Senate, so buried the opposition that Mr. Reagan reluctantly signed the bill rather than have his veto overridden. Now the Administration seeks to win in the Supreme Court what it lost in Congress. In a case from North Carolina, it has asked the justices to interpret the law in precisely the ways Congress rejected so resoundingly.
(start of bracket) It's not even a partisan initiative; other Republicans rush to dissociate themselves from it. Sena- tor Robert Dole, the majority leader, and others who guided the voting bill to passage have responded with their own brief urging the Court not to trim the law to Administration specifications. Such a brief dramatizes the Administration's estrangement from civil rights, mainstream politics and the bipartisan national sense of electoral justice that inspired the 1982 law. (end of Bracket)
The law arose because of a 1980 Supreme Court ruling that anyone trying to challenge state voting rules had to prove discriminatory intent on the part of state lawmakers. Gerrymanders and other de- vices could nullify the growing black vote, yet showing they were intended to discriminate was an impossible burden.
Consider a typical tactic, the multi-member election district. Smaller districts might enable black neighborhoods to elect candidates of their choice. Submerging those populations within large areas with white majorities meant that fewer or no blacks would be elected. But who could prove a discriminatory motive?
Congress did not outlaw at-large districts or any other voting practice. It said they were invalid if, based on all the evidence, the political process was "not equally open" to minorities. Electoral success or lack of it was to be one of the criteria but, significantly, the law disavowed any minority right to representation in proportion to population. In other words, no racial quotas.
In the North Carolina case a Federal court weighed all the evidence, including a century of discrimination, and found that several at-large districts violated the law. The Justice Department, joining the state's appeal, argued that since blacks have made gains in two recent elections - up from 4 legislators to 16 - the lower court must have been using a forbidden quota as a yardstick.
Do a few victories for blacks exonerate North Carolina's practices? On its face, the 1982 law says no. Congress made clear in the law and committee reports that, just as no one factor is enough to condemn a districting plan, no single factor exonerates it. Any other reading of the law would give greater weight to a handful of successes than to decades of unfair defeats, and under conditions that threaten to make them temporary.
(Start of bracket) The same Justice Department that tried to obstruct the bill has the nerve to ask the Court, in interpreting the law, to give more weight to the views of Senator Orrin Hatch, who led the eight senators who opposed it, than to Senator Dole and the 85 senators who voted for it. The Department characterizes them as a "faction."
Ignoring the usual canons for construing statutes, the Justice Department must strain to read the 1982 law the way it does. For the Administration to insist on straining is to flout what Senator Dole and his "faction" know: decency and fairness to underrepresented minorities is always, regardless of party, the best politics.(End of bracket)
(Page 5)
Court Should Listen to Mr. Dole
FOR five years now, the Reagan administration has been telling the U.S. Supreme Court how civil rights cases should be decided. Now a bipartisan congressional coalition led by Sen. Bob Dole, R. Kan., has done the same. Mr. Dole and nine others last week filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying the administration's position in a North Carolina voting rights case blatantly misrepresents Congress' intent in amendments made three years ago to the Voting Rights Act.
The brief will win Mr. Dole and his four Republican colleagues in the coalition no political points with the administration. It effectively yanks the logical props from beneath the administration's position In the case at hand - that Congress never intended the 1982 amendments to apply to cases such as the North Carolina one. But (start underline) the congressional brief shows some Republicans are willing to put their money where their mouth is on matters of Importance to black Americans.(end underline)
At issue is North Carolina's dubious practice of electing more than one legislator from a given district, a practice that in the past has deprived minorities of adequate representation. A federal appellate court last year used the 1982 amendments to strike down that state's latest redistricting plan, thus thrusting the matter before the Supreme Court. Mr. Dole and his colleagues assert that Congress Intended the '82 amendments - the gist of which is that the courts could find local election laws discriminatory If their result penalized minority voters - to apply in instances such as this one.
(Start underline) Mr. Dole and his Republican colleagues, especially, deserve credit for guts (end underline) and savvy In attacking an administration position that's morally Incorrect and politically inept - multi-member districts such as North Carolina's historically have hurt Republicans as well as racial minorities. One hopes the high court, which properly must decide the law of the situation while ignoring its political aspects, takes their brief as prima facie evidence of Congress' true intent.

(page 1)
This document is from the collections at the Dole Archives, University of Kansas http://dolearchives.ku.edu
BOB DOLE KANSAS
STANDING COMMITTEES: AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY FINANCE RULES
United States Senate WASHINGTON, DC 20510 September 17, 1985
(Break)
Dear Friend:
Last month I joined a bipartisan group of members of Congress in filing an amicus brief in the Gingles v. Thornburg voting rights case before the Supreme Court.
As you know, Gingles represents the first major test of the 1982 amendments to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Our brief, which is at odds with the U.S. Department of Justice and the North Carolina Attorney General, urges the Supreme Court to uphold an earlier court finding that blacks have indeed been wrongly denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process in North Carolina.
A three-judge court panel maintained that under the totality of circumstances, North Carolina's use of large, multi-member state legislative districts does not provide for equal opportunity for blacks. For instance, the panel found that blacks have had to "single shot" their votes for a single candidate - thereby giving up their right to participate in the election of other members of their district's delegation.
I agreed and, with the other principal proponents and authors of the 1982 amendments, filed the amicus brief. Similar briefs were also filed by the Republican National Committee and the Republican governor of North Carolina, James Martin.
As I mentioned earlier, our position is at odds with the Justice Department and the top legal officer in North Carolina. Those parties believe that since some blacks have been elected to public office under North Carolina's districting structure, the requirements of Section 2 are satisfied.
But, as the principal author of the 1982 amendments to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, I know the intent of Congress in adopting the amendments in 1982. I have a strong interest in seeing the Supreme Court enforce Section 2 as it was intended: To guarantee, by statute, that black Americans have the right to equally participate in our country's political process, and to provide for fair and effective standards in enforcing that right.
s-press_010_009_001_A1b.pdf
(Page 2)
These actions - the amicus briefs filed by the members of Congress, the RNC and Gov. Martin - again show that we in the Republican Party are not insensitive, and will be there in our continuing fight for freedom, justice and equal opportunity.
Sincerely,
BOB DOLE Majority Leader
P.S. -- I have enclosed several copies of editorials written in support of our action. You may be interested in these for background purposes.
BD: sb
(Page 3)
LOS ANGELES TIMES; September 6, 1985
A Fight Goes On
Three years ago Congress overwhelmingly approved extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a recognition that" many minority voters still needed federal protections despite the progress made since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the original and historic legislation.
The Reagan Administration vigorously opposed the extension until an 11th-hour acknowledgement. that Congress would prevail and federal surveillance would continue. Now the Administration is trying to undo what Congress intended.
The Justice Department has proposed new rules that would weaken the enforcement of the law. Under current policies, local officials must prove that election changes such as redistricting, annexation or at-large balloting do not dilute the vote of minorities in keeping with the principle of one vote equaling another. The revised rules would require the voters who challenge the changes to prove discrimination- a provision that contradicts the protections provided by Congress in 1982.
Under other proposed revisions, Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III would have the authority to approve changes that result in discrimination if the "retrogression" was "unavoidable." That provision conflicts with the law. Discrimination is always avoidable, and always illegal.
Although the days of physical harassment, poll taxes and literacy tests-with questions such as how many bubbles does a bar of soap have-have ended, minorities lose political clout because of gerrymandering and other schemes. The Voting Rights Act, which applies to nine Southern states and parts of 10 other states, was extended to 1997
to protect the equal opportunity to participate in the political process.
But the Administration is against strong enforcement both in policy and in court. After a federal court ruled that a North Carolina state redistricting plan discriminated against black voters, the Justice Department intervened to support the redrawn lines. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to hear the case next month in the first major test of the 1982 law.
To support its position, the Administration has relied on language in a compromise that broke the impasse when the Senate Judiciary Committee considered extending the 1982 law. (Underlined) Sen. Bob Dole (End of Underlined) (R-Kan.), who proposed the compromise, has dramatically opposed the Administration's mis- interpretation in a friend-of-the-court brief. The brief was signed by four other Republicans. including Sen. Charles McC. Mathias of Maryland. and five Democrats, including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. And North Carolina's Republican governor, James G. Martin, and the Republican National Committee have filed briefs in opposition to the Administration's position.
During the debate over the extension, Republicans like Dole and Mathias specified that the law would not require the election of minorities in quota-like proportions, but that minorities should have equal access to the electoral process- in other words, a fair shake at the polls and on the ballot.
The (start of underline) Reagan Administration should follow the lead of these enlightened Republicans (end of underline) in both the North Carolina case and in the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1982.
(Page 4)
NEW YORK TIMES; September 6, 1985
Still Fighting Voting Rights
President Reagan, who won by a landslide in 1980 and 1984, lost another kind of voting battle by another kind of landslide in 1982. That's when Congress, despite his opposition, voted overwhelmingly to strengthen the Voting Rights Act. The votes, 389 to 24 in the House and 85 to 8 in the Senate, so buried the opposition that Mr. Reagan reluctantly signed the bill rather than have his veto overridden. Now the Administration seeks to win in the Supreme Court what it lost in Congress. In a case from North Carolina, it has asked the justices to interpret the law in precisely the ways Congress rejected so resoundingly.
(start of bracket) It's not even a partisan initiative; other Republicans rush to dissociate themselves from it. Sena- tor Robert Dole, the majority leader, and others who guided the voting bill to passage have responded with their own brief urging the Court not to trim the law to Administration specifications. Such a brief dramatizes the Administration's estrangement from civil rights, mainstream politics and the bipartisan national sense of electoral justice that inspired the 1982 law. (end of Bracket)
The law arose because of a 1980 Supreme Court ruling that anyone trying to challenge state voting rules had to prove discriminatory intent on the part of state lawmakers. Gerrymanders and other de- vices could nullify the growing black vote, yet showing they were intended to discriminate was an impossible burden.
Consider a typical tactic, the multi-member election district. Smaller districts might enable black neighborhoods to elect candidates of their choice. Submerging those populations within large areas with white majorities meant that fewer or no blacks would be elected. But who could prove a discriminatory motive?
Congress did not outlaw at-large districts or any other voting practice. It said they were invalid if, based on all the evidence, the political process was "not equally open" to minorities. Electoral success or lack of it was to be one of the criteria but, significantly, the law disavowed any minority right to representation in proportion to population. In other words, no racial quotas.
In the North Carolina case a Federal court weighed all the evidence, including a century of discrimination, and found that several at-large districts violated the law. The Justice Department, joining the state's appeal, argued that since blacks have made gains in two recent elections - up from 4 legislators to 16 - the lower court must have been using a forbidden quota as a yardstick.
Do a few victories for blacks exonerate North Carolina's practices? On its face, the 1982 law says no. Congress made clear in the law and committee reports that, just as no one factor is enough to condemn a districting plan, no single factor exonerates it. Any other reading of the law would give greater weight to a handful of successes than to decades of unfair defeats, and under conditions that threaten to make them temporary.
(Start of bracket) The same Justice Department that tried to obstruct the bill has the nerve to ask the Court, in interpreting the law, to give more weight to the views of Senator Orrin Hatch, who led the eight senators who opposed it, than to Senator Dole and the 85 senators who voted for it. The Department characterizes them as a "faction."
Ignoring the usual canons for construing statutes, the Justice Department must strain to read the 1982 law the way it does. For the Administration to insist on straining is to flout what Senator Dole and his "faction" know: decency and fairness to underrepresented minorities is always, regardless of party, the best politics.(End of bracket)
(Page 5)
Court Should Listen to Mr. Dole
FOR five years now, the Reagan administration has been telling the U.S. Supreme Court how civil rights cases should be decided. Now a bipartisan congressional coalition led by Sen. Bob Dole, R. Kan., has done the same. Mr. Dole and nine others last week filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying the administration's position in a North Carolina voting rights case blatantly misrepresents Congress' intent in amendments made three years ago to the Voting Rights Act.
The brief will win Mr. Dole and his four Republican colleagues in the coalition no political points with the administration. It effectively yanks the logical props from beneath the administration's position In the case at hand - that Congress never intended the 1982 amendments to apply to cases such as the North Carolina one. But (start underline) the congressional brief shows some Republicans are willing to put their money where their mouth is on matters of Importance to black Americans.(end underline)
At issue is North Carolina's dubious practice of electing more than one legislator from a given district, a practice that in the past has deprived minorities of adequate representation. A federal appellate court last year used the 1982 amendments to strike down that state's latest redistricting plan, thus thrusting the matter before the Supreme Court. Mr. Dole and his colleagues assert that Congress Intended the '82 amendments - the gist of which is that the courts could find local election laws discriminatory If their result penalized minority voters - to apply in instances such as this one.
(Start underline) Mr. Dole and his Republican colleagues, especially, deserve credit for guts (end underline) and savvy In attacking an administration position that's morally Incorrect and politically inept - multi-member districts such as North Carolina's historically have hurt Republicans as well as racial minorities. One hopes the high court, which properly must decide the law of the situation while ignoring its political aspects, takes their brief as prima facie evidence of Congress' true intent.