City of Mobile v. Bolden
446 U.S. 55 (1980)
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Rule of Law:
An at-large electoral system is not unconstitutional simply because it has a racially discriminatory impact; to violate the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments, plaintiffs must prove that the system was created or is maintained for a racially discriminatory purpose.
Facts:
- Since 1911, the City of Mobile, Alabama, has been governed by a three-member City Commission.
- All three Commissioners were elected at-large, meaning every voter in the city cast a ballot for each of the three positions.
- To be elected, a candidate was required to win a majority of the total vote.
- The population of Mobile was approximately 35.4% Black.
- Despite the significant Black population, no Black person had ever been elected to the City Commission.
- Voting patterns in Mobile elections demonstrated significant racial polarization, where white voters predominantly supported white candidates and Black voters supported Black candidates.
- Black citizens in Mobile were able to register and vote without official hindrance or obstruction.
Procedural Posture:
- Wiley L. Bolden and other Black citizens of Mobile filed a class-action lawsuit against the City of Mobile and its Commissioners in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.
- The complaint alleged that the city's at-large system for electing commissioners diluted the voting strength of Black citizens in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
- Following a bench trial, the District Court found for the plaintiffs, holding that the electoral system was unconstitutional.
- The District Court ordered the city to disestablish its commission form of government and replace it with a mayor-council system with council members elected from single-member districts.
- The City of Mobile (appellant) appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
- The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's judgment, agreeing that the at-large system was unconstitutional.
- The City of Mobile appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which noted probable jurisdiction.
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Issue:
Does a city's at-large electoral system, which results in the dilution of a racial minority's voting strength, violate the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments in the absence of proof that the system was created or is maintained for a racially discriminatory purpose?
Opinions:
Majority - Stewart
No. A facially neutral electoral system violates the Equal Protection Clause or the Fifteenth Amendment only if it is motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose. Proof of a law's discriminatory effect is insufficient to establish a constitutional violation. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits only the purposeful denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race, and the District Court explicitly found that Black citizens in Mobile could register and vote without hindrance. Similarly, under the Fourteenth Amendment, multimember districts are not unconstitutional per se and are only invalid if proven to be a purposeful device to further racial discrimination, a standard which the appellees failed to meet. The Constitution does not guarantee proportional representation for any political group.
Concurrence - Blackmun
No. While the findings of the District Court were likely sufficient to support an inference of purposeful discrimination, the judgment must be reversed because the judicial remedy was improper. The District Court's order to completely dismantle Mobile's long-standing commission form of government and replace it with a mayor-council system was not a sound exercise of judicial discretion. The court should have first considered less drastic alternative remedies that could have corrected the constitutional violation while preserving the basic structure of the city's government.
Concurrence - Stevens
No. A proper test for vote dilution should focus on objective factors rather than the subjective motivation of decisionmakers. A political structure that treats all individuals equally but adversely affects a racial group should be invalidated only if it is (1) manifestly not a routine political decision, (2) has a significant adverse impact on the minority group, and (3) is unsupported by any neutral justification. Because Mobile's commission government is a common and traditional form of municipal governance, it is not an 'uncouth' or irrational gerrymander and is therefore constitutional, even if some of its support is motivated by invidious purposes.
Dissenting - Brennan
Yes. Proof of discriminatory impact is sufficient to establish a violation in vote-dilution cases. Furthermore, even if discriminatory purpose is required, the appellees clearly met that burden through the evidence presented to the lower courts.
Dissenting - White
Yes. The plurality's decision is flatly inconsistent with this Court's precedent in White v. Regester. An invidious discriminatory purpose can and should be inferred from the totality of the objective circumstances. The meticulous findings of the lower courts—including a history of official discrimination, severe racial bloc voting, and the unresponsiveness of elected officials—were more than sufficient to support the inference that the at-large system was maintained for a discriminatory purpose.
Dissenting - Marshall
Yes. The plurality wrongly requires proof of discriminatory intent. Vote-dilution claims challenge the infringement of the fundamental right to vote and are rooted in the 'fundamental rights' strand of equal protection jurisprudence, which requires only a showing of discriminatory effect, not purpose. By imposing a stringent intent requirement, the plurality's decision provides the politically powerless with nothing more than the right to cast meaningless ballots and misinterprets both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which protect against the dilution, not just the outright denial, of the franchise.
Analysis:
This decision established discriminatory purpose as the constitutional standard for vote dilution claims under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, significantly raising the evidentiary bar for plaintiffs. It rejected the 'totality of the circumstances' approach that had developed in lower courts, which had allowed for findings of unconstitutionality based on an aggregate of factors showing discriminatory results. The ruling made it much more difficult for minority groups to challenge at-large and multimember electoral systems. This constitutional holding was later legislatively overruled for statutory claims by Congress's 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act, which established a 'results' test for Section 2 of the Act.
