Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 5, 1994 TAG: 9410120027
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: William Raspberry
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
One court reviewed a North Carolina districting plan that created two weirdly shaped black-majority districts and found it to be a product of ``racial gerrymandering,'' but not illegal. Another court looked at a Louisiana plan and branded the ``bizarre and irregular shape'' of a new black-majority district ``racial gerrymandering'' - and illegal.
The U.S. Supreme Court almost surely will take up the two cases in the fall term.
What should its ruling be?
I have a confession. I don't know what it should be. I don't know what the Constitution requires. I don't even know what common sense requires.
There's an established view that state legislatures may not draw their district maps in a way calculated to reduce minority voting strength - for instance, by scattering a concentration of black voters among several congressional districts. That seems reasonable.
But reduce that voting strength from what? From what it used to be? From what it ought to be? From its mathematical maximum?
These are not silly questions. The two districts (from which freshmen Congressmen Melvin L. Watts and Cleo Fields were elected) are under challenge because of their peculiar shapes. Watts' North Carolina district is 160 miles from end to end, but at places no wider than the interstate it follows for much of its length. Fields' Louisiana district cuts a Z across the middle of the state. Both, obviously, were drawn in such a way as to maximize the chances of sending a black person to the House of Representatives.
Are the shapes of the challenged districts cases so ``bizarre'' as to be unconstitutional, as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor suggested? Should the Supreme Court be in the aesthetics business?
There are those who would argue that the court shouldn't be in the business at all, redistricting being a function of the state legislatures. But once the court finds it unlawful for state legislatures to draw district boundaries for the purpose of reducing black representation, it is, willy-nilly, in the redistricting business. It's hard to see how it can avoid ruling one way or another on the Louisiana and North Carolina congressional maps - or how it could do so in a way that makes constitutional sense.
What surprises me is that I am at a loss as to what outcome I'd like to see.
The Congressional Black Caucus, which just held its annual legislative weekend, now boasts a record-high 40 members. I count that a good thing. Drawing more aesthetically pleasing districts might reduce the CBC by a dozen members or more. I don't want that to happen.
But it's conceivable that several states could be redistricted in ways that might add substantially to the 40. It wouldn't be a pretty map, and many of the districts might consist of non-contiguous bits and pieces, but nothing in the Constitution requires either neatness or contiguousness, as far as I can see.
But there's another consideration: To maximize the chances for blacks to elect members of Congress - by herding them into black-majority districts - is to reduce black influence in all the surrounding districts. Indeed, many Republicans are encouraging just such a move, on the ground that purging the greatest number of districts of their black voters - mostly Democratic - will increase the number of districts available for Republican control, perhaps giving the GOP control of the House.
How do you balance between increasing black influence in a number of districts and guaranteeing election of a black candidate from a single district? Is there some optimal balance between expanding the Black Caucus and Balkanizing the electorate? And even if you could reach a political judgment on this issue, how could it translate into a judicial one?
I'm ready to take another look at Lani Guinier and her ``cumulative voting'' scheme. She would (as one possibility) have all congressional candidates run statewide, giving each voter as many votes as there are congressional seats. Voters would be free to cast their votes in any pattern they chose - one each for several candidates or all for a single candidate.
Blacks could pool their voting strength when and where they saw fit, solving the problem of optimizing black influence. And since there would be no more districts, it would save Justice O'Connor from having to wrestle with the question of how bizarre is too bizarre.
Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB