B. C. Foreman et al. v. Dallas County, Texas, et al. (521 U.S. 979)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 27, 1997 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 521 U.S. 979 · 117 S. Ct. 2357
- Decided
- June 27, 1997
- Term
- October Term 1996
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. Texas by statute authorizes counties to appoint election judges, one for each precinct, who supervise voting at the polls on election days. In 1988 and several times thereafter, Dallas County changed its procedures for selecting these officials. Each of the new methods used party-affiliation formulas of one sort or another. After the most recent change in 1996, appellants sued the county and others in the United States District Court, claiming that § 6 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 439, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, required that the changes be precleared. A three-judge court held that preclearance was not required because the county was simply exercising, under the state statute, its “discretion to adjust [the procedure for appointing election judges] according to party power.” App. to Juris. Statement 4a. The court apparently concluded that this “discretionary” use of political power meant that the various methods for selecting election judges were not covered changes under § 5. The court also concluded that the Justice Department’s preclearance of a 1985 submission from the State — the recodification of its entire election code — operated to preclear the county’s use of partisan considerations in selecting election judges. The court denied injunctive relief, and later dismissed appellants’ complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure…
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