Gomillion v. Lightfoot

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Gomillion v. Lightfoot
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 18 – 19, 1960
Decided November 14, 1960
Full case name: Gomillion et al. v. Lightfoot, Mayor of Tuskegee, et al.
Citations: 364 U.S. 339; 364 U.S. 339; 81 S. Ct. 125; 5 L. Ed. 2d 110; 1960 U.S. LEXIS 189
Prior history: Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Holding
Electoral district boundaries drawn only to disenfranchise blacks violate the Fifteenth Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Earl Warren
Associate Justices: Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Charles Evans Whittaker, Potter Stewart
Case opinions
Majority by: Frankfurter
Joined by: Warren, Black, Douglas, Clark, Harlan, Brennan, Stewart
Concurrence by: Whittaker
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XV

Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960)[1], was a United States Supreme Court decision that found an electoral district created to disenfranchise blacks violated the Fifteenth Amendment.

Contents

[edit] Decision

In this landmark voting rights case, the Supreme Court was faced with the question of whether or not Act 140 of the Alabama legislature violated the Fifteenth Amendment. Alabama passed Act 140 in 1957, which redistricted the city of Tuskegee using a 28 sided figure. This shape excluded all but a handful of potential African-American votes. Justice Frankfurter issued the opinion of the Court, which held that the Act did violate the provision of the 15th Amendment prohibiting states from denying anyone their right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. As he said in his concurring opinion, Justice Whitaker would have struck it down under the equal protection clause, which is what the Court later did in Baker v. Carr.

[edit] Subsequent history

In the 1980 case Mobile v. Bolden, the court limited it's holding in Gomillion so that racially discriminatory effect and intent would be necessary to prompt intervention by federal courts.

[edit] See also

[edit] External link

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