The Lawrence lawsuit of Unintended Consequences
A legal settlement in the City of Lawrence could have ramifications across the state of Indiana, particularly Marion County. The Council will vote tonight, and likely pass, a settlement in a Voting Rights Act lawsuit.
The complaint, filed by Lawrence resident Regina Dillard in 2004, alleged the make up of the City Council violated the Voting Rights Act because it diluted minority voting strength. Currently the Council is made up of six district seats and three at-large seats. Dillard says it is difficult for minorities to run for the Lawrence Council and win because of the at-large seats.
Under the terms of the settlement, the three at-large seats will be eliminated and replaced with three district seats. The plaintiff’s and her attorney have to petition the legislature for the change however.
There are two aspects to this case which make it interesting.
First, the attorney for the plaintiff, Stephen Laudig, will be paid $21,000 from the City of Lawrence and the Marion County Election Board. Laudig and his client Dillard have to go the Legislature to petition the change, however there is no guarantee the Indiana General Assembly will make the change. So they could literally find someone to sponsor a bill that goes nowhere and they will have met their terms of the settlement. What a way to make $21,000.
Secondly, and more importantly, there are ramifications to this suit across Indiana and in Marion County. Currently on the Indianapolis City-County Council there are 25 District seats and 4 at-large seats. The four seats are all held by Democrats, three Blacks, one White. On the whole Council there are nine Blacks altogether, for a total of 31 percent. If you take out the at-large seats the 24 percent. Why is this important? If we follow the Lawrence logic (which is scary enough in itself) Blacks are over-represented on the Council because according to the 2000 census, they only make up 24 percent of the population of the County. Whites are just slightly more than 70 percent.
So following the Lawrence logic, if I were a White person in Marion County (and some Blacks say I am) I would follow Lawrence’s lead and file a Voting Right’s lawsuit because it is more difficult for Whites to be elected at-large than Blacks and Blacks are over-represented on the Council.
A little something else to keep in mind, if the goal of this suit was to create Black districts, they may want to be careful about creating what I call benevolent apartheid. It’s a situation where a Black district is created so Blacks have a voice, but that voice is virtually ignored by their white counterparts and Blacks basically have no representation and are actually worse off than they were before, because where there would have been many voices affecting several races, now they all impact one.
There’s nothing like a lawsuit with unintended consequences.
