Majority-Minority Districts

Shaw v. Reno, another racial gerrymandering case I read this week, concerns majority-minority districts. These are districts in which most of the population is non-white. In this case, the court was ruling on North Carolina’s 1^st and 12^th Congressional Districts. To understand the creation of these districts, one must first understand section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA).

This section requires “preclearance” for certain states and localities. Essentially, certain North Carolina counties had to get approval from the U.S. Attorney General before changing any of their voting procedures. This includes redistricting maps.

After the 1990 census, North Carolina gained a seat in the U.S. House, because the state’s population had increased. When the North Carolina General Assembly reapportioned the congressional districts in 1991, they created one majority-African-American district (District 1). This map was thrown away, however, because the Assembly had failed to get preclearance for it from the Attorney General. This meant they had to draw a new map, which now included an oddly shaped second majority-African-American district, the 12^th.

Five white North Carolinians sued the Attorney General, saying that these two majority-minority districts unconstitutionally discriminated against them. The court ruled in their favor, finding that District 12 was drawn with race as the primary concern.

This did not, however, mean that majority-minority districts were inherently unconstitutional. The court just stated that race could not be the only consideration in creating districts. Compactness, contiguity, and political subdivisions (for example census units) are not constitutionally-required considerations, but they are legitimate and traditional goals in redistricting. Race is not, though it can be a factor as long as other considerations (like those listed above) are the main ones. That is the most important part of the Shaw v. Reno decision: that race cannot be the main criterion in redistricting.