160
Opinion of the Court
set out the various types of political gerrymandering in which he thought the Republicans might engage. App. 99- 100. That Tilling possessed documents in which the opposing party speculated that he might have a discriminatory strategy does not indicate that Tilling actually had such a strategy. And nothing in the record indicates that Tilling relied on the documents in preparing the plan.
Indeed, the record demonstrates that Tilling and the board relied on sources that were wholly unlikely to engage in or tolerate intentional discrimination against black voters, including the Ohio NAACP, the Black Elected Democrats of Ohio, and the Black Elected Democrats of Cleveland, Ohio. Tilling's plan actually incorporated much of the Ohio NAACP's proposed plan; the Ohio NAACP, for its part, fully supported the 1991 apportionment plan. 794 F. Supp., at 726-729; App. to Juris. Statement 164a-167a, 269a-270a. Because the evidence not only fails to support but also directly contradicts the District Court's finding of discriminatory intent, we reverse that finding as clearly erroneous. In so doing, we express no view on the relationship between the Fifteenth Amendment and race-conscious redistricting. Cf. United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U. S. 144, 155-165 (1977) (plurality opinion). Neither party asserts that the State's conscious use of race by itself violates the Fifteenth Amendment. Instead, they dispute whether the District Court properly found that the State intentionally discriminated against black voters. On that question, we hold only that the District Court's finding of discriminatory intent was clear error.
IV
Finally, the District Court held that the plan violated the Fourteenth Amendment because it created legislative districts of unequal size. App. to Juris. Statement 146a- 148a. The Equal Protection Clause does require that electoral districts be "of nearly equal population, so that each
Page: Index Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007