Bolley Johnson, Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, et al. v. Miguel De Grandy et al. (512 U.S. 997)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 30, 1994 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 512 U.S. 997 · 114 S. Ct. 2647
- Decided
- June 30, 1994
- Term
- October Term 1993
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. These consolidated cases are about the meaning of vote dilution and the facts required to show it, when §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is applied to challenges to single-member legislative districts. See 79 Stat. 437, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973. We hold that no violation of § 2 can be found here, where, in spite of continuing discrimination and racial bloc voting, minority voters form effective voting majorities in a number of districts roughly proportional to the minority voters’ respective shares in the voting-age population. While such proportionality is not dispositive in a challenge to single-member districting, it is a relevant fact in the totality of circumstances to be analyzed when determining whether members of a minority group have “less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” Ibid. I On the first day of Florida’s 1992 legislative session, a group of Hispanic voters including Miguel De Grandy (De Grandy plaintiffs) complained in the United States District Court against the speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives, the president of its Senate, the Governor, and other state officials (State). The complainants alleged that the districts from which Florida voters had chosen their state senators and…
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