Cite as: 538 U. S. 188 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
referendum may constitute relevant evidence of discriminatory intent in a challenge to an ultimately enacted initiative. See, e. g., Washington v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 458 U. S. 457, 471 (1982) (considering statements of initiative sponsors in subjecting enacted referendum to equal protection scrutiny); Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S., at 268. But respondents do not challenge an enacted referendum.
In their brief to this Court, respondents offer an alternative theory of equal protection liability: that city officials, including the mayor, acted in concert with private citizens to prevent Pleasant Meadows from being built because of the race and family status of its likely residents. See Brief for Respondents 12-26; Tr. of Oral Arg. 33-34, 36-40, 43. Respondents allege, among other things, that the city law director prompted disgruntled voters to file the petition, that the city council intentionally delayed its deliberations to thwart the development, and that the mayor stoked the public opposition. See Brief for Respondents 17. Not only did the courts below not directly address this theory of liability, but respondents also appear to have disavowed this claim at oral argument, focusing instead on the denial of the permits. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 37-38.
What is more, respondents never articulated a cognizable legal claim on these grounds. Respondents fail to show that city officials exercised any power over voters' decision-making during the drive, much less the kind of "coercive power" either "overt or covert" that would render the voters' actions and statements, for all intents and purposes, state action. Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S., at 1004. Nor, as noted above, do respondents show that the voters' sentiments can be attributed in any way to the state actors against which it has brought suit. See ibid. Indeed, in finding a genuine issue of material fact with regard to intent, the Sixth Circuit relied almost entirely on apparently independent statements by private citizens. See 263 F. 3d, at
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