78
Opinion of the Court
plan being challenged contained three majority-black districts, and after our remand the complaint was amended to challenge another of these, the then-Second District. The trial court found this district, too, was improperly drawn under the standards we confirmed in Miller. Johnson v. Miller, 922 F. Supp. 1552 (1995).
For the task of drawing a new plan, the court deferred to Georgia's Legislature, but the legislature could not reach agreement. The court then drew its own plan, Johnson v. Miller, 922 F. Supp. 1556 (1995); we declined to stay the order; and the 1996 general elections were held under it. The court's plan contained but one majority-black district. The absence of a second, if not a third, majority-black district has become the principal point of contention. Though the elections have been completed, the plan remains in effect until changed by a valid legislative Act, and the appellants ask us to set it aside.
The private appellants are various voters, defendant-intervenors below, who contend that the interests of Georgia's black population were not adequately taken into account. The United States, also a defendant-intervenor, joins in the appeal. The state officials, defendants below, do not object to the plan and appeared before us as appellees to defend it. The other set of appellees are the private plaintiffs below, who argued that racial gerrymandering under the previous plan violated their right to equal protection.
The private appellants attack the court's plan on five grounds. First, citing Upham v. Seamon, 456 U. S. 37 (1982) (per curiam), they say the District Court erred in disregarding the State's legislative policy choices and in making more changes than necessary to cure constitutional defects in the previous plan. Second and third, they allege the plan violates §§ 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U. S. C. §§ 1973, 1973c. Fourth, they argue the court's plan contains significant population deviations and so violates the constitutional one-person, one-vote requirement. Fifth, they claim
Page: Index Previous 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007