THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 3, 1995 TAG: 9507030026
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
Chesapeake officials, battling the Justice Department over the city's election system, welcomed Thursday's Supreme Court decision limiting the use of race in drawing up voting districts.
``From what I can tell,'' said City Attorney Ronald S. Hallman, ``the decision will help us hold onto the at-large election system, because it invalidates the use of race to draw voter district boundaries.''
But others who have followed the court's changing stand on voting rights said the ruling is not necessarily a guarantee for the city.
Since last June, the Chesapeake City Council has resisted a Justice Department decision denying the city's request for at-large school board elections.
The department said such a system - already in place for City Council elections - showed a pattern of ``persistent and severe polarization along racial lines'' that caused black candidates to lose and violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The remedy traditionally approved by the Justice Department in such instances is the creation of ward voting districts that give blacks a better chance of being elected.
The Voting Rights Act requires Virginia and seven other states to get federal permission before changing any election law or district boundary. Georgia, which drew up the black-majority congressional district that was rejected by the Supreme Court, is one of those states.
Chesapeake decided against setting up a race-based system, and asked the Justice Department to reconsider its ruling.
The council's Republican majority has opposed imposing wards as an unfair, ``thou shalt'' mandate that goes too far in the name of racial equality and punishes Southern localities for past discrimination.
In its 5-4 decision Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the use of race as a ``predominant factor'' for creating districts. Hallman said the ruling seemed to bolster the council's position and could help the city in its efforts to provide the elected school board that voters demanded in a 1993 referendum.
But attorneys, civil rights advocates and law professors Friday said the court's ruling had no clear implications for Chesapeake.
``I don't think the Justice Department case in Chesapeake will change as a result of the decision,'' said J. Gerald Hebert, an attorney specializing in voting rights cases who practices in Alexandria.
``The Supreme Court did not say that race can never be considered or taken into account,'' said Hebert, who also teaches at the Georgetown University Law Center.
``If race is going to be used as a basis for drawing districts, there must be a strong basis for believing that race-consciousness is necessary,'' he said. ``And the Justice Department has that evidence in Chesapeake - a history of racially polarized voting.''
The city of Chesapeake, Hebert said, still bears the burden of proving that discrimination is absent if it wants to use an at-large system.
Timothy G. O'Rourke, a Clemson University political science professor who testified on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Georgia case, said Chesapeake might benefit, indirectly, from the ``chastisement of the Justice Department'' by the Supreme Court on Thursday.
But, he said, ``Chesapeake's case is different enough from the Georgia case that it would be tough to extract any direct parallels.''
Even if Chesapeake capitulates to Justice Department demands, the constitutional questions raised by the Supreme Court about race-based districts could leave the city open to lawsuits challenging the federal department's policy.
``The Supreme Court decision thoroughly undermines the whole intent of the Voting Rights Act,'' said Laughlin McDonald, who heads the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in Atlanta.
``Here's what might happen in Chesapeake,'' McDonald said. ``They could adopt wards, and I suppose there is someone out there in your fine city who would oppose it and sue the city.
``The city would then be forced to say that it created wards to comply with the Justice Department.''
The only problem, McDonald said, is that, since Thursday's ruling, complying with the Justice Department isn't good enough anymore.
With so many questions surrounding the Supreme Court's decision, one voting-rights expert said the city may have only one option: do nothing until the answers come.
``No one knows what this Supreme Court precedent might lead to,'' said Thomas R. Morris, a political scientist and president of Emory & Henry College in Emory, Va. ``It behooves any jurisdiction to delay any action with the Justice Department as long as possible.''
Morris described the ruling as the strongest judicial signal on voting rights in more than two decades.
``You have an entirely new situation in which to evaluate voting rights at this point,'' Morris said.
But as Chesapeake waits to see the ruling's impact locally, it must also satisfy the public's demand for the right to vote for its school board.
``I think the council is going to have a very difficult time weighing the competing political pressures here,'' Morris said. ``A delay may be justified, but ultimately they have to convince the people of that.''
KEYWORDS: U.S. SUPREME COURT CHESAPEAKE REDISTRICTING VOTING
DISTRICTS U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTEMNT by CNB