Abrams v. Johnson

The U.S. Department of Justice and various African American voters appealed the district court's plan to the Supreme Court. They argued that the district court should have adopted one of several plans submitted to the district court which would have had two majority-minority districts. Among other claims, they argued that the plan adopted by the district court violated section 2 Voting Rights Act and the principle of "one man, one vote." In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court disagreed, and upheld the district court's plan.

The Supreme Court first rejected the argument that the plan diluted the votes of African Americans in violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 requires that a political process, in this case the apportionment of Georgia's congressional districts, allows racial minorities an equal opportunity "to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." In the case Thornburg v. Gingles, the Supreme Court held that a violation of section 2 occurs only where the minority group is large enough to constitute a majority in a specific geographic area, the members of the group vote similarly, and the majority group votes with enough similarity to defeat the minority group's preferred candidate. In Abrams, the Court found that this test was not met because statistical data showed that there was large cross-over voting--that is, a significant percentage of whites voted for African American candidates and a significant percentage of African Americans voted for white candidates.

The Court also concluded that the district court's plan did not violate the principle of "one man, one vote" embodied in Article I, section 2 of the Constitution. This principle requires that, as near as possible, legislative districts have the same number of people. Relying on statistical data, the Court concluded that the population differences between the districts were extremely small, and thus were acceptable. In fact, the Court noted, the differences in the plan adopted by the district court were smaller than any of the differences between districts involved in any of the alternative plans proposed to the district court.

Four justices dissented from the Court's decision, concluding that the district court should have adopted one of the plans which provided for two majority-minority districts. Justices Breyer, Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg argued that it would not have been impracticable to create a second majority-minority district in a constitutional way. More importantly, however, the dissenters disagreed with the test employed by the majority. Justice Breyer, writing for the dissenters, concluded that the majority, "by focusing upon what it considered to be an unreasonably pervasive positive use of race as a redistricting factor, . . . created a legal doctrine that will unreasonably restrict legislators' use of race, even for the most benign, or antidiscriminatory purposes." However, despite the dissenters' position, the Court's decision makes clear that any use of race as a factor in redistricting, even a positive use, will not withstand constitutional scrutiny.