Case Summary

In the late 1980s, a group of Black voters filed a federal lawsuit challenging the method of electing justices to Louisiana’s Supreme Court as diluting Black voters’ voting strength in violation of § 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act (“VRA”). Plaintiffs specifically challenged the scheme’s use of single-member districts to elect five justices and one multi-member district to elect two.

  • The federal district court dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the VRA only protected minority voters’ opportunity to elect “representatives” of their choice, and judges were not representatives. Plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
  • The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded the case back to the district court, finding that VRA § 2 was intended to and did apply to judicial elections. On remand, the district court ruled in favor of the defendants and upheld the plan as not violating § 2. Plaintiffs again appealed to the Fifth Circuit.
  • While plaintiffs’ appeal was pending, the Fifth Circuit held in a separate case that VRA § 2 did not apply to judicial elections since judges were not representatives. Plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • On June 20, 1991, SCOTUS reversed and held that VRA § 2 definitively applies to judicial elections, citing the intent that § 2 coexist with and expand upon the 15th Amendment which had repeatedly been held to apply to judicial elections. When Congress used the term “representatives” in the Act, they were referring to all winners of popular elections, including judges when they are elected.

Significance: Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, as amended in 1982, applies to judicial elections and judicial election districts.

Case Library

U.S. Supreme Court - 501 U.S. 380 (1991)