THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 30, 1995 TAG: 9506300506
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
The court also decided to reopen a voting-rights dispute that could jeopardize North Carolina's two black-majority congressional seats. ``This could have big implications for our state,'' North Carolina House Speaker Harold Brubaker, R-Randolph, said of the two linked court decisions. ``We'll probably have to pull the redistricting maps out.''
The high court's long-awaited rulings could open the way for more legal challenges to voting districts designed to give minorities more representation.
In North Carolina, the 1st Congressional District and the 12th Congressional District - put together five years ago by the General Assembly, with federal guidance, to favor black candidates - ``would seem to be in some jeopardy,'' said state Deputy Attorney General Charles M. Hensey, a voting-rights expert.
The Supreme Court's initial decision on Thursday invalidated as unconstitutional a new, minority-dominated Georgia voting district that had been challenged by minority white voters in much the same way as North Carolina redistricting is under legal attack.
The Supreme Court ruled that good-faith efforts by Georgia state legislators to abide by the 1965 Voting Rights Act when creating predominantly black election areas would not necessarily insulate the lawmakers from future constitutional challenges.
President Clinton said in a statement that he was ``disappointed'' by the decision and that it ``threatens to undermine the promise of the Voting Rights Act,'' which bars the use of voting restrictions discriminate against minorities.
In the North Carolina decision, the Supreme Court said it would hear the appeal of five white Durham voters who claim their civil rights have been violated by the new black-majority 12th Congressional District.
``The appeal will be considered during the fall term of the court,'' said a Supreme Court spokesperson.
The five Durham voters, all Republicans, lost their argument in Raleigh's federal courts, and their appeal has been pending before the Supreme Court for nearly a year.
The court was deeply divided on the Georgia issue.
Writing for the majority in the 5-4 ruling, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the Georgia voting plan violated the equal protection rights of some voters.
Race cannot be the predominant factor when legislatures draw election boundaries, Kennedy said.
Legal challenges to election districts will be successful, Kennedy wrote, ``when challengers prove that the legislature subordinated traditional race-neutral districting . . . to racial considerations.''
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed with Kennedy.
Writing for the dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority decision targeting the Voting Rights Act ``renders redistricting perilous for state legislatures.'' She was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer.
Several court observers agreed that the Georgia ruling should strengthen the appeal of the ``Durham Five'' when the court takes up the 12th District case next fall.
The group, headed by Robinson Everett, a Duke University law professor, protested the 12th District reapportionment that in 1992 sent Mel Watt, D-Charlotte, to Washington as one of the two first blacks to be elected in North Carolina to the U.S. House of Representatives since the turn of the century.
Because Everett's action is aimed at the 12th District, that now stretches in a strip along U.S. Route 85 between Durham and Charlotte, it is not yet clear what effect the appeal by the Durham Five will have on the similar 1st Congressional District in northeastern North Carolina.
The 1st District, with a 57 percent black population, sent U.S. Rep. Eva M. Clayton, D-Warren, to Congress at the same time Watt was elected. Clayton, who is black, is the first female to represent the state in this century.
``Of course I'm disappointed that the Supreme Court . . . used the Equal Protection Clause - the very document that gives us rights - to take certain rights away,'' Clayton said in Washington. ``Racial minorities will suffer as a result of this decision.''
State Rep. Milton F. ``Toby'' Fitch Jr., a Wilson Democrat, and former state Rep. Samuel Hunt III, who steered the redistricting legislation through the North Carolina House four years ago, both said Thursday that they acted under U.S. Voting Rights guidelines.
``At the time we had to be guided by U.S. law,'' said Hunt, now state transportation secretary.
North Carolina Attorney General Mike Easley said, ``The net effect of these cases is that the court, not the people's elected representatives, ends up drawing congressional districts. This is troublesome. The court's role should be to set guidelines for the states.''
KEYWORDS: SUPREME COURT DECISIONS REDISTRICTING
ELECTION NORTH CAROLINA by CNB