Fifteenth Amendment, Section 1:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude–

The Court has held that racially–based redistricting in order to dilute minority voting power is unconstitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment.1 In Gomillion v. Lightfoot, the Court found a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment in the redrawing of a 1957 municipal boundary line in Tuskegee, Alabama from a square into a 28–sided figure that excluded from municipal elections all but a few of its 400 Black voters but no White voters.2

In the 1980 case City of Mobile v. Bolden, in a considerably divided decision with respect to the requirement of discriminatory intent,3 a plurality of the Court sought to restrict the Fifteenth Amendment to cases in which there is direct denial or abridgment of the right to register and vote, and to exclude dilution claims, such as the challenge to an at–large electoral system at issue.4 Three Justices in separate opinions disagreed with the plurality’s basis for putting aside the Fifteenth Amendment and suggested they would have applied the Amendment to the vote dilution claim.5

Subsequent decisions have largely adopted the view of Justice Whitaker’s concurrence6 in Gomillion to resolve allegations of racial gerrymandering under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.7 Despite the Court’s acknowledgments that racial gerrymandering may violate the purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment continues to be the predominant constitutional authority in such cases.8

Footnotes

1

Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960).

2

364 U.S. 339 (1960); Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U.S. 52 (1964) (extending the reasoning of Gomillion to congressional districting but finding insufficient evidence of discriminatory intent).

3

446 U.S. 55, 61–65 (1980) (rejecting race–based redistricting Fifteenth Amendment claim on the basis that “action by a State that is racially neutral on its face violates the Fifteenth Amendment only if motivated by a discriminatory purpose” ); Id. at 125 (Marshall, J. dissenting, adhering to the view that discriminatory effect is sufficient). But see Thonrburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 35 (1986) (reassessing Voting Rights Act section 2, currently codified at 52 U.S.C. § 10301, after 1982 Voting Rights Act amendment establishing “results” language in response to City of Mobile v. Bolden).

4

446 U.S. at 65. See also, Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U.S. 613, 619 n.6 (1982) (recounting the split opinions in City of Mobile but “express[ing] no view on the application of the Fifteenth Amendment to this case” ).

5

City of Mobile, 446 U.S. 84–85 (Stevens, J. concurring), 102 (White, J. dissenting), 125–35 (Marshall, J. dissenting).

6

Gomillion, 364 U.S. 349. (Whitaker, J. concurring).

7

E.g., Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 645 (1993) ( “This Court’s subsequent reliance on Gomillion in other Fourteenth Amendment cases suggests the correctness of Justice Whittaker’s view.” ). See also Cooper v. Harris, 137 S. Ct. 1455 (2017); White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755 (1973); Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U.S. 124 (1971).

8

Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900 (1995) (citing Shaw, 509 U.S. at 657, and stating “Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions; it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters—a goal that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments embody, and to which the Nation continues to aspire.” ) (citations omitted). See supra Amdt14.S1.5.2.6 Racial Vote Dilution and Racial Gerrymandering.