Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder

557 U.S. 193

Case Year: 2009

Case Ruling: 9-0, Reversed and Remanded

Opinion Justice: Roberts

FACTS

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted pursuant to the enforcement authority granted to Congress by the Fifteenth Amendment. The objective was to combat discrimination against minority citizens who wished to exercise their right to vote. The law's most stringent provisions applied to those states that had a history of voting rights discrimination and had less than a 50 percent voter registration rate in the 1964 presidential election. Section 5 of the act (the preclearance provision) requires covered states and their political subdivisions to submit to the Justice Department or to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia any changes in voting rights or electoral processes. The law requires federal approval before any such changes go into effect. Provisions of the Voting Rights Act were initially designed to be temporary, lasting five years, but the act has been regularly extended, most recently in 2006 when Congress extended Section 5 for another twenty-five years. The Voting Rights Act allows a state or political subdivision to be removed from coverage (the "bail out" provision) upon demonstrating to the D.C. District Court that it has not imposed discriminatory voting procedures for ten years and has taken positive steps to eliminate intimidation, harassment, and other forms of voting discrimination.

The Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 was created in 1987 to provide services to a portion of Travis County, Texas. It is governed by a five-member, elected board. It does not register voters (the county handles that task), but it does administer its own elections. The district has never been shown to have discriminated on the basis of race, but, as a political subdivision of Texas, it must comply with the Voting Rights Act. When the district wanted to move its primary voting location from a private residence to a more convenient public school, it was required to seek approval from the D.C. District Court. However, the Texas utility district decided to fight this requirement. It requested one of two actions from the D.C. court. First, it asked to be removed from Voting Rights Act coverage; second, if the court declined that request, it asked that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act be declared unconstitutional.

The D.C. District Court refused to allow the district to "bail out," holding that the exemption provision applies only to those political subdivisions that register voters. The court also upheld the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act. The district appealed, asking the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on its two requests.

 

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT.

The district filed suit seeking relief from [its] preclearance obligations under the "bailout" provision of the Voting Rights Act. That provision allows the release of a "political subdivision" from the preclearance requirements if certain rigorous conditions are met. The court below denied relief, concluding that bailout was unavailable to a political subdivision like the utility district that did not register its own voters. The district appealed, arguing that the Act imposes no such limitation on bailout, and that if it does, the preclearance requirements are unconstitutional.

That constitutional question has attracted ardent briefs from dozens of interested parties, but the importance of the question does not justify our rushing to decide it. Quite the contrary: Our usual practice is to avoid the unnecessary resolution of constitutional questions. We agree that the district is eligible under the Act to seek bailout. We therefore reverse, and do not reach the constitutionality of §5.

The historic accomplishments of the Voting Rights Act are undeniable. When it was first passed, unconstitutional discrimination was rampant and the "registration of voting-age whites ran roughly 50 percentage points or more ahead" of black registration in many covered States. Today, the registration gap between white and black voters is in single digits in the covered States; in some of those States, blacks now register and vote at higher rates than whites. Similar dramatic improvements have occurred for other racial minorities. . . .

At the same time, §5, "which authorizes federal intrusion into sensitive areas of state and local policymaking, imposes substantial federalism costs." These federalism costs have caused Members of this Court to express serious misgivings about the constitutionality of §5.

Section 5 goes beyond the prohibition of the Fifteenth Amendment by suspending all changes to state election law--however innocuous--until they have been precleared by federal authorities in Washington, D. C. The preclearance requirement applies broadly and in particular to every political subdivision in a covered State, no matter how small.

Some of the conditions that we relied upon in upholding this statutory scheme . . . have unquestionably improved. Things have changed in the South. Voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity. Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels.

These improvements are no doubt due in significant part to the Voting Rights Act itself, and stand as a monument to its success. Past success alone, however, is not adequate justification to retain the preclearance requirements. It may be that these improvements are insufficient and that conditions continue to warrant preclearance under the Act. . . .

The Act also differentiates between the States, despite our historic tradition that all the States enjoy "equal sovereignty." Distinctions can be justified in some cases. . . . But a departure from the fundamental principle of equal sovereignty requires a showing that a statute's disparate geographic coverage is sufficiently related to the problem that it targets. . . .

The evil that §5 is meant to address may no longer be concentrated in the jurisdictions singled out for preclearance. The statute's coverage formula is based on data that is now more than 35 years old, and there is considerable evidence that it fails to account for current political conditions. . . .

The parties do not agree on the standard to apply in deciding whether, in light of the foregoing concerns, Congress exceeded its Fifteenth Amendment enforcement power in extending the preclearance requirements. The district argues that " '[t]here must be a congruence and proportionality between the injury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to that end;' " the Federal Government asserts that it is enough that the legislation be a " 'rational means to effectuate the constitutional prohibition.' " That question has been extensively briefed in this case, but we need not resolve it. The Act's preclearance requirements and its coverage formula raise serious constitutional questions under either test.

. . . [W]e are keenly mindful of our institutional role. We fully appreciate that judging the constitutionality of an Act of Congress is "the gravest and most delicate duty that this Court is called on to perform." Blodgett v. Holden (1927) (Holmes, J., concurring). "The Congress is a coequal branch of government whose Members take the same oath we do to uphold the Constitution of the United States." Rostker v. Goldberg (1981). The Fifteenth Amendment empowers "Congress," not the Court, to determine in the first instance what legislation is needed to enforce it. Congress amassed a sizable record in support of its decision to extend the preclearance requirements, a record the District Court determined document [ed] contemporary racial discrimination in covered states." The District Court also found that the record "demonstrat[ed] that section 5 prevents discriminatory voting changes" by "quietly but effectively deterring discriminatory changes." We will not shrink from our duty "as the bulwar[k] of a limited constitution against legislative encroachments," The Federalist No. 78, but "[i]t is a well-established principle governing the prudent exercise of this Court's jurisdiction that normally the Court will not decide a constitutional question if there is some other ground upon which to dispose of the case," Escambia County v. McMillan (1984). Here, the district also raises a statutory claim that it is eligible to bail out under §§4 and 5. Justice Thomas argues that the principle of constitutional avoidance has no pertinence here. He contends that even if we resolve the district's statutory argument in its favor, we would still have to reach the constitutional question, because the district's statutory argument would not afford it all the relief it seeks.

We disagree. The district expressly describes its constitutional challenge to §5 as being "in the alternative" to its statutory argument. We therefore turn to the district's statutory argument.

Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act authorizes a bailout suit by a "State or political subdivision." There is no dispute that the district is a political subdivision of the State of Texas in the ordinary sense of the term. The district was created under Texas law with "powers of government" relating to local utilities and natural resources.

The Act, however, also provides a narrower statutory definition in §14(c)(2): " '[P]olitical subdivision' shall mean any county or parish, except that where registration for voting is not conducted under the supervision of a county or parish, the term shall include any other subdivision of a State which conducts registration for voting." The District Court concluded that this definition applied to the bailout provision in §4(a), and that the district did not qualify, since it is not a county or parish and does not conduct its own voter registration.

"Statutory definitions control the meaning of statutory words, of course, in the usual case. But this is an unusual case."Lawson v. Suwannee Fruit & S. S. Co. (1949). Were the scope of §4(a) considered in isolation from the rest of the statute and our prior cases, the District Court's approach might well be correct. But here specific precedent, the structure of the Voting Rights Act, and underlying constitutional concerns compel a broader reading of the bailout provision.

Importantly, we do not write on a blank slate. Our decisions have already established that the statutory definition in §14(c)(2) does not apply to every use of the term "political subdivision" in the Act. We have, for example, concluded that the definition does not apply to the preclearance obligation of §5. According to its text, §5 applies only "[w]henever a [covered] State or political subdivision" enacts or administers a new voting practice. Yet in [ United States v. ] Sheffield Bd. of Comm'rs [1978] we rejected the argument by a Texas city that it was neither a State nor a political subdivision as defined in the Act, and therefore did not need to seek preclearance of a voting change. . . . The majority . . . relying on the purpose and structure of the Act, concluded that the "definition was intended to operate only for purposes of determining which political units in nondesignated States may be separately designated for coverage under §4(b)."

We reaffirmed this restricted scope of the statutory definition the next Term in Dougherty County Bd. of Ed. v. White(1978). . . .

According to these decisions, then, the statutory definition of "political subdivision" in §14(c)(2) does not apply to every use of the term "political subdivision" in the Act. . . . In light of our holdings that the statutory definition does not constrict the scope of preclearance required by §5, the district argues, it only stands to reason that the definition should not constrict the availability of bailout from those preclearance requirements either.

The Government responds that any such argument is foreclosed by our interpretation of the statute in City of Rome [ v. United States (1980)]. There, it argues, we made clear that the discussion of political subdivisions in Sheffield was dictum, and "specifically held that a 'city is not a "political subdivision" for purposes of §4(a) bailout."

Even if that is what City of Romeheld, the premises of its statutory holding did not survive later changes in the law. . . .

In 1982, . . . Congress expressly repudiated City of Rome and instead embraced "piecemeal" bailout. As part of an overhaul of the bailout provision, Congress amended the Voting Rights Act to expressly provide that bailout was also available to "political subdivisions" in a covered State, "though [coverage] determinations were not made with respect to such subdivision as a separate unit." In other words, Congress decided that a jurisdiction covered because it was within a covered State need not remain covered for as long as the State did. If the subdivision met the bailout requirements, it could bail out, even if the State could not. In light of these amendments, our logic for denying bailout in City of Rome is no longer applicable to the Voting Rights Act--if anything, that logic compels the opposite conclusion.

Bailout and preclearance under §5 are now governed by a principle of symmetry. "Given the Court's decision in Sheffield that all political units in a covered State are to be treated for §5 purposes as though they were 'political subdivisions' of that State, it follows that they should also be treated as such for purposes of §4(a)'s bailout provisions." . . .

We therefore hold that all political subdivisions--not only those described in §14(c)(2)--are eligible to file a bailout suit.

More than 40 years ago, this Court concluded that "exceptional conditions" prevailing in certain parts of the country justified extraordinary legislation otherwise unfamiliar to our federal system. In part due to the success of that legislation, we are now a very different Nation. Whether conditions continue to justify such legislation is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today. We conclude instead that the Voting Rights Act permits all political subdivisions, including the district in this case, to seek relief from its preclearance requirements.

The judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE THOMAS, CONCURRING IN THE JUDGMENT IN PART AND DISSENTING IN PART.

This appeal presents two questions: first, whether appellant is entitled to bail out from coverage under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA); and second, whether the preclearance requirement of §5 of the VRA is unconstitutional. Because the Court's statutory decision does not provide appellant with full relief, I conclude that it is inappropriate to apply the constitutional avoidance doctrine in this case. I would therefore decide the constitutional issue presented and hold that §5 exceeds Congress' power to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment. . . . For the reasons set forth below, I conclude that the lack of current evidence of intentional discrimination with respect to voting renders §5 unconstitutional. The provision can no longer be justified as an appropriate mechanism for enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment. . . .

There is certainly no question that the VRA initially "was passed pursuant to Congress' authority under the Fifteenth Amendment." Lopez v. Monterey County (1999). For example, §§2 and 4(a) seek to implement the Fifteenth Amendment's substantive command by creating a private cause of action to enforce §1 of the Fifteenth Amendment, see §1973(a), and by banning discriminatory tests and devices in covered jurisdictions. . . . Section 5, however, was enacted for a different purpose: to prevent covered jurisdictions from circumventing the direct prohibitions imposed by provisions such as §§2 and 4(a). Section 5 "was a response to a common practice in some jurisdictions of staying one step ahead of the federal courts by passing new discriminatory voting laws as soon as the old ones had been struck down. That practice had been possible because each new law remained in effect until the Justice Department or private plaintiffs were able to sustain the burden of proving that the new law, too, was discriminatory."

The rebellion against the enfranchisement of blacks in the wake of ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment illustrated the need for increased federal intervention to protect the right to vote. Almost immediately following Reconstruction, blacks attempting to vote were met with coordinated intimidation and violence. A soon-to-be victorious mayoral candidate in Wilmington, North Carolina, for example, urged white voters in an 1898 election-eve speech: "Go to the polls tomorrow and if you find the negro out voting, tell him to leave the polls, and if he refuses kill him; shoot him down in his tracks."

This campaign of violence eventually was supplemented, and in part replaced, by more subtle methods engineered to deny blacks the right to vote. See South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966). Literacy tests were particularly effective. . . . Compounding the tests' discriminatory impact on blacks, alternative voter qualification laws such as "grandfather clauses, property qualifications, [and] 'good character' tests" were enacted to protect those whites who were unable to pass the literacy tests. . . .

The Court had declared many of these "tests and devices" unconstitutional, but case-by-case eradication was woefully inadequate to ensure that the franchise extended to all citizens regardless of race. As a result, enforcement efforts before the enactment of §5 had rendered the right to vote illusory for blacks in the Jim Crow South. Despite the Civil War's bloody purchase of the Fifteenth Amendment, "the reality remained far from the promise."

Thus, by 1965, Congress had every reason to conclude that States with a history of disenfranchising voters based on race would continue to do all they could to evade the constitutional ban on voting discrimination. . . . Moreover, the massive scale of disenfranchisement efforts made case-by-case enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment impossible, if not Sisyphean.

It was against this backdrop of "historical experience" that §5 was first enacted and upheld against a constitutional challenge. . . .

In upholding §5 in Katzenbach, the Court nonetheless noted that the provision was an "uncommon exercise of congressional power" that would not have been "appropriate" absent the "exceptional conditions" and "unique circumstances" present in the targeted jurisdictions at that particular time. . . .

The extensive pattern of discrimination that led the Court to previously uphold §5 as enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment no longer exists. Covered jurisdictions are not now engaged in a systematic campaign to deny black citizens access to the ballot through intimidation and violence. And the days of "grandfather clauses, property qualifications, 'good character' tests, and the requirement that registrants 'understand' or 'interpret' certain matter" are gone. There is thus currently no concerted effort in these jurisdictions to engage in the "unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution" that served as the constitutional basis for upholding the "uncommon exercise of congressional power" embodied in §5.

The lack of sufficient evidence that the covered jurisdictions currently engage in the type of discrimination that underlay the enactment of §5 undermines any basis for retaining it. Punishment for long past sins is not a legitimate basis for imposing a forward-looking preventative measure that has already served its purpose. Those supporting §5's reenactment argue that without it these jurisdictions would return to the racially discriminatory practices of 30 and 40 years ago. But there is no evidence that public officials stand ready, if given the chance, to again engage in concerted acts of violence, terror, and subterfuge in order to keep minorities from voting. Without such evidence, the charge can only be premised on outdated assumptions about racial attitudes in the covered jurisdictions. Admitting that a prophylactic law as broad as §5 is no longer constitutionally justified based on current evidence of discrimination is not a sign of defeat. It is an acknowledgment of victory.

The current statistical evidence confirms that the emergency that prompted the enactment of §5 has long since passed. By 2006, the voter registration rates for blacks in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi had jumped to 71.8%, 66.9%, and 72.2%, respectively. . . . In addition, blacks in these three covered States also have higher registration numbers than the registration rate for whites in noncovered states. . . .

This is not to say that voter discrimination is extinct. Indeed, the District Court singled out a handful of examples of allegedly discriminatory voting practices from the record made by Congress. But the existence of discrete and isolated incidents of interference with the right to vote has never been sufficient justification for the imposition of §5's extraordinary requirements. From its inception, the statute was promoted as a measure needed to neutralize a coordinated and unrelenting campaign to deny an entire race access to the ballot. Perfect compliance with the Fifteenth Amendment ‘s substantive command is not now--nor has it ever been--the yardstick for determining whether Congress has the power to employ broad prophylactic legislation to enforce that Amendment. The burden remains with Congress to prove that the extreme circumstances warranting §5's enactment persist today. A record of scattered infringement of the right to vote is not a constitutionally acceptable substitute.

In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in order to guarantee that no citizen would be denied the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Congress passed §5 of the VRA in 1965 because that promise had remained unfulfilled for far too long. But now--more than 40 years later--the violence, intimidation, and subterfuge that led Congress to pass §5 and this Court to uphold it no longer remains. An acknowledgment of §5's unconstitutionality represents a fulfillment of the Fifteenth Amendment's promise of full enfranchisement and honors the success achieved by the VRA.