CASE SUMMARY

Texas gained three congressional seats following the 1990 Census and, in an effort to comply with the Voting Rights Act (“VRA”), the state enacted a new congressional redistricting plan containing a new majority-Black district, a new majority-Hispanic district, and a newly reconfigured majority-Black district. After the U.S. Department of Justice granted preclearance to the plan, several Texas voters filed a federal lawsuit challenging the plan as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

  • A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas struck down the three new majority-minority districts as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders and the State appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • On June 13, 1996, SCOTUS issued a 5-4 decision affirming the district court’s decision but generating no majority opinion. Justice O'Connor's plurality opinion, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Kennedy, affirmed the district court's finding that race predominated over traditional redistricting criteria, noting the districts' highly bizarre shapes, lack of compactness, and the state's use of racial data as a proxy for partisan gerrymandering objectives. Next, the plurality opinion held that the racial classifications in the three districts were not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest, rejecting the state's asserted justification of VRA compliance on the grounds the state went beyond what was "reasonably necessary" to avoid diluting minority voting strength or retrogression in the challenged districts. In the close of her plurality opinion, Justice O'Connor stated that "[o]ur Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence evinces a commitment to eliminate unnecessary and excessive governmental use and reinforcement of racial stereotypes."
    • Justice O'Connor penned an additional concurring opinion expressing two viewpoints: that compliance with the results test of VRA § 2 is a compelling state interest, and that this results test can coexist in principle and in practice with the Court's ruling in Shaw v. Reno and its progeny.
    • Justice Kennedy's concurring opinion characterized as dicta the statements in the plurality opinion that strict scrutiny would not automatically apply to all cases involving the intentional creation of majority-minority districts.
    • Justice Thomas's concurring opinion, joined by Justice Scalia, took the position that strict scrutiny would always apply in such cases.

CASE LIBRARY

U.S. Supreme Court - No. 94-805 [517 U.S. 952 (1996)]