Jackie Holder, Etc., et al. v. E. K. Hall, SR., et al. (512 U.S. 874)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 30, 1994 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 512 U.S. 874 · 114 S. Ct. 2581
- Decided
- June 30, 1994
- Term
- October Term 1993
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Kennedy
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Kennedy announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice joined, and in all but Part II-B of which Justice O’Con-nor joined. This case presents the question whether the size of a governing authority is subject to a vote dilution challenge under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U. S. C. § 1973. I The State of Georgia has 159 counties, one of which is Bleckley County, a rural county in central Georgia. Black persons make up nearly 20% of the eligible voting population in Bleckley County. Since its creation in 1912, the county has had a single-commissioner form of government for the exercise of “county governing authority.” See Ga. Code Ann. § 1 — 3—3(7) (Supp. 1993). Under this system, the Bleckley County Commissioner performs all of the executive and legislative functions of the county government, including the levying of general and special taxes, the directing and controlling of all county property, and the settling of all claims. Ga. Code Ann. §36-5-22.1 (1993). In addition to Bleckley County, about 10 other Georgia counties use the single-commissioner system; the rest have multimember commissions. In 1985, the Georgia Legislature authorized Bleckley County to adopt a multimember commission consisting of five commissioners elected from single-member districts and a single chairman elected at large. 1985 Ga. Laws, p.…
Excerpt of a 18,100-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.