City Of Rome v. United States

446 U.S. 156 (1980)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Georgia passed several laws of local application that amended the electoral provisions of the city's charter. These enactments altered the Rome electoral scheme in the following ways: (1) the number of wards was reduced from nine to three; (2) each of the nine commissioners would henceforth be elected at-large to one of three numbered posts established within each ward; (3) each commissioner would be elected by majority rather than plurality vote, and if no candidate for a particular position received a majority, a runoff election would be held between the two candidates who had received the largest number of votes; (4) the terms of the three commissioners from each ward would be staggered; (5) the Board of Education was expanded from five to six members; (6) each Board member would be elected at large, by majority vote, for one of two numbered posts created in each of the three wards, with runoff procedures identical to those applicable to City Commission elections; (7) Board members would be required to reside in the wards from which they were elected; (8) the terms of the two members from each ward would be staggered. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires jurisdictions to obtain a 'pre-clearance' from the United States Attorney General or the United States District Court for the District of Columbia before implementing or modifying any public voting rules or regulations. A jurisdiction may evade pre-clearance by pursuing a declaratory judgment that it did not unlawfully discriminate against any voter population at least 17 years previous to the declaratory judgment. Rome attempted to modify its voting scheme for town elections. The changes would reduce the number of voting wards, size of candidate pool, etc. The Court determined that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is applicable to Rome as a component of Georgia. The Attorney General declined to preclear the provisions for majority vote, numbered posts, and staggered terms for City Commission and Board of Education elections, as well as the residency requirement for Board elections. The reasoning was that Rome is predominately white and racial bloc voting had been common, and the electoral changes would deprive Negro voters of the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. The Attorney General also refused to preclear 13 of the 60 annexations in question. He found that the disapproved annexations either contained predominately white populations of significant size or were near predominately white areas and were zoned for residential subdivision development. Rome pursued a declaratory judgment that it did not employ any device or test to discriminate on the account of race within 17 years. The District Court determined that a declaratory judgment was unavailable to Rome because the Act applied only to sovereign jurisdictions which would encompass Georgia but not Rome (which is only a sub-entity of Georgia). The District Court granted the United States (D) summary judgment motion. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision.