Large v. Fremont County, Wyo.

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit

February 22, 2012
PUBLISH Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

TENTH CIRCUIT

JAMES E. LARGE; GARY COLLINS;
EMMA LUCILLE MCADAMS;
PATRICIA BERGIE; PETE
CALHOUN,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.

FREMONT COUNTY, WYOMING; No. 10-8071
DOUG THOMPSON, JANE
ADAMSON, PAT HICKERSON, in
their official capacity as Fremont
County Commissioners; JULIE
FREESE, in her official capacity as
Fremont County Court Clerk,

Defendants-Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Wyoming
(D.C. No. 2:05-CV-00270-ABJ)

J. Scott Detamore of Mountain States Legal Foundation, Lakewood, Colorado, for
Defendants-Appellants.

Laughlin McDonald of American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Inc., Atlanta,
Georgia (Andrew W. Baldwin, Berthenia Crocker, and Janet Millard of Baldwin,
Crocker & Rudd, P.C., Lander, Wyoming, with him on the brief), for Plaintiffs-
Appellees.

Before KELLY, SEYMOUR, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.
HOLMES, Circuit Judge.

We are called upon in this appeal to decide what level of deference—if

any—must be afforded to a local governmental entity’s proffered plan to remedy

an adjudged violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C.

§ 1973 (“Section 2”), when that proposed remedy unnecessarily conflicts with

state law. We believe that when such plans in effectuating their remedial

purposes do not adhere as closely as possible to the contours of the governing

state law, they are not eligible for the deference customarily afforded legislative

plans. Consequently, in this case, we affirm the district court’s order that rejected

the Fremont County Board of Commissioners’ proposed remedial plan, and hold,

under settled Supreme Court precedent that strongly favors single-member

districts in court-ordered plans, that the district court did not abuse its discretion

in fashioning a remedial plan solely consisting of single-member districts.

I. BACKGROUND

On October 5, 2005, residents of Fremont County, Wyoming, who are

members of the Eastern Shoshone and Northen Arapaho Tribes (“Appellees”),

filed suit against Fremont County (the “County”) 1 alleging that its at-large system

1
In addition to the County itself, individual members of the Fremont
County Board of Commissioners and the Fremont County Clerk were also sued in
their official capacities. For purposes of this opinion, they are—except where
(continued...)

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for electing commissioners to the Fremont County Board of Commissioners (the

“Board”) violated Section 2 by preventing the politically cohesive Native

American vote from electing a candidate of their choice due to racially polarized

white-bloc voting. Although Native Americans made up 20.94% of the

countywide population in 2000, 2 with a vast majority of these Native Americans

living on the Wind River Indian Reservation, they had largely been unsuccessful

in attaining representation on the five-member board, either through the election

of a Native American or a Native American-preferred candidate. See Large, 709

F. Supp. 2d at 1221. Notably, as of 2010, there had been eight Native American

candidates for positions on the Board, with only one ever having been elected.

See id. at 1221.

Following a nine-day bench trial, the district court entered judgment

against the County, holding that the at-large election scheme diluted the Native

American vote, and thus violated Section 2. See id. at 1231. The Board was

1
(...continued)
noted—referred to collectively as the “County.”
2
The county has a single-race Native American population of 7047, or
19.68% of the total population. Counting persons who identify as at least part
Native American raises that number to 20.94%. Those percentages shrink,
however, if one considers only “voting-age persons” (“VAP”): single-race Native
Americans comprise only 16.03% of the VAP population, while including the
“any part” Native American VAP population only increases the latter percentage
to 17.01%. See Large v. Fremont Cnty., Wyo., 709 F. Supp. 2d 1176, 1183 (D.
Wyo. 2010).

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subsequently ordered to present a remedial plan to cure the violation, which it did

on June 25, 2010.

The Board’s proposed plan—the subject of this appeal—consists of two

districts: one single-seat majority Native American district, representing 19.2% of

the county’s population, and one four-seat majority white district encompassing

the rest of the county and representing the remaining approximately 80.8% of the

county population. 3 Under this plan, the commissioners would be elected for

four-year staggered terms. Candidates from the majority Native American district

would be required to reside in the district and could only be voted on by members

of the district. Meanwhile, the four remaining seats allocated to the majority

white district would be elected by the remaining populace using an at-large

scheme, with two board members elected every other year.

Of some importance to this appeal is the fact that this “hybrid” election

scheme is not authorized under Wyoming law. See Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 18-3-501

(2010). More specifically, Wyoming law envisions only one of two scenarios for

county-commissioner elections: at-large voting for all the commissioner seats, or

3
In addition to this plan, the Board also submitted an alternative plan.
For reasons that are not clear from the record, however, both the district court and
the parties never gave significant consideration to the alternative plan, which, like
the plan discussed above, had one single-member district and four at-large seats.
On appeal, the County does not maintain that the district court erred in failing to
consider this alternative plan; consequently, we do not consider that plan further.

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the creation of five single-member districts where each commissioner “shall

reside in and represent the district from which he is elected by the electors of that

district.” Id. § 18-3-501(h). 4

After entertaining oral arguments regarding the sufficiency of this remedial

plan, the district court rejected the Board’s proposal in favor of a plan with five

single-member districts, as initially proposed by the Appellees. The district court

acknowledged that “redistricting is [primarily] a legislative task.” Aplt. App. at

208 (Order on Remedial Plan, filed Aug. 10, 2010). Nevertheless, the court

concluded that adopting the plan was inappropriate in light of the fact that the

proposed plan violated Wyoming state law and also failed to cure the harm that it

identified in the original voting scheme.

As the court explained, although “the Board is free to exercise its

legislative judgment in proposing a plan to replace that stricken by the Court, . . .

4
Following the district court’s opinion in this case, the Wyoming
legislature passed an amendment to § 18-3-501(h) which, effective July 1, 2011,
specifically authorizes the type of election scheme proposed by the Board. See
2011 Wyo. Sess. Laws Ch. 78 (“[B]eginning January 1, 2012, . . . commissioners
may serve at large or . . . district representation may be apportioned in any
combination of single member, multi-member and at large representation,
provided that in all cases commissioners represent a population as nearly equal as
is practicable considering the geographic, economic and social characteristics of
the county.”). Although this change in the law empowers Wyoming
counties—including Fremont County—to adopt hybrid election schemes in the
future, for purposes of this appeal it has no effect. Indeed, the County expressly
acknowledged as much. Aplt. Rule 28(j) Ltr. at 1 (dated Mar. 7, 2010) (“Fremont
County does not contend that this amendment applies to or in any way controls
this case.”). The law at the time the district court rendered its decision was
clear—no such hybrid system was allowable under § 18-3-501.

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when doing so, and insofar as possible, the Board is not free to disregard state

law.” Id. at 212 (emphasis added). Given that Wyoming law did not anticipate

the creation of a hybrid-district scheme, the court found that the Board’s plan

“do[es] not withstand scrutiny as [it is] not consistent with principles governing

state law.” Id. at 216. Moreover, the district court found that the Board, in

crafting such an overwhelmingly Native American district (one that, in essence,

simply surrounded the Wind River Indian Reservation), presented a plan that

“preserve[d] the racial separation in the county” and “perpetuate[d] the

separation, isolation, and racial polarization in the County, guaranteeing that the

non-Indian majority continues to cancel out the voting strength of the minority.”

Id. In addition, the district court found it troubling that the proposed hybrid

system allowed members of the white majority to vote for four commissioners as

opposed to only one, which is “different from that opportunity for voting afforded

the Native American population.” Id. at 218. In sum, the court concluded that

the Board’s “proposed plan[] suffer[s] from the same deficiencies [found in the

original, at-large election scheme] and tend[s] to perpetuate the isolation and

polarization that have existed in the past in Fremont County.” Id.

Following entry of the district court’s order, this appeal ensued. We have

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

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 II. ANALYSIS

Section 2 proscribes any “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or

standard, practice, or procedure . . . imposed or applied by any State or political

subdivision . . . which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any

citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color . . . .” 42 U.S.C.

§ 1973(a). 5 Chief among the ills Section 2 seeks to address is voter dilution,

which occurs when a political entity “enact[s] a particular voting scheme . . .

[which] ‘minimize[s] or cancel[s] out the voting potential of racial or ethnic

minorities.’” Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 911 (1995) (quoting Mobile v.

Bolden, 446 U.S. 55, 66 (1980)); see 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b) (stating that a Section 2

violation occurs “if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the

political processes leading to nomination or election in the State or political

subdivision are not equally open to participation by members of a class of citizens

protected by subsection (a)”); Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 47–48 (1986)

(“This Court has long recognized that multimember districts and at-large voting

schemes may operate to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of racial

5
See generally Janai S. Nelson, White Challengers, Black Majorities:
Reconciling Competition in Majority-Minority Districts with the Promise of the
Voting Rights Act, 95 Geo. L.J. 1287, 1293–94 (2007) (“Although section 2 does
not establish a right of minority communities to proportional representation, it
nonetheless secures them a place in the electoral process that is meaningful and
free from discrimination by banning discrimination through intent or effect and
measuring violations of the statute by their impact on minority voters’ electoral
participation.” (footnote omitted)).

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minorities in the voting population.” (alteration omitted) (quoting Burns v.

Richardson, 384 U.S. 73, 88 (1966)) (internal quotation marks omitted));

Simmons v. Galvin, 575 F.3d 24, 28 n.2 (1st Cir. 2009) (“Vote dilution claims

comprise the vast majority of § 2 claims.”). Where, as here, a Section 2 violation

has been found, based on a claim of voter dilution, the remedy is often some form

of redistricting to rectify those factors that have resulted in the prohibited

inequity. See, e.g., Sanchez v. Colorado, 97 F.3d 1303, 1329 (10th Cir. 1996)

(ordering, in a case involving a Section 2 violation, that Colorado “implement a

remedial plan of redistricting consistent with . . . the dictates of § 2”); see also

Stephen Ansolabehere, Nathaniel Persily & Charles Stewart III, Race, Region,

and Vote Choice in the 2008 Election: Implications for the Future of the Voting

Rights Act, 123 Harv. L. Rev. 1385, 1391 (2010) (“Section 2 litigation is almost

exclusively concerned with vote dilution by way of at-large systems of

representation or redistricting plans. When successful, it usually leads courts to

create majority-minority districts that give minority voters a greater chance of

electing their preferred candidates.” (footnotes omitted)).

Although in such circumstances the catalyst for redistricting is a federal-

court order, the Supreme Court has routinely cautioned that “redistricting and

reapportioning legislative bodies is a legislative task which the federal courts

should make every effort not to pre-empt.” Wise v. Lipscomb, 437 U.S. 535, 539

(1978) (plurality) (White, J.); see Connor v. Finch, 431 U.S. 407, 414–15 (1977);

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Chapman v. Meier, 420 U.S. 1, 27 (1975); White v. Weiser, 412 U.S. 783, 794–95

(1973). 6 Consequently, “[w]hen a federal court declares an existing

apportionment scheme unconstitutional, it is . . . appropriate, whenever

practicable, to afford a reasonable opportunity for the legislature to meet

constitutional requirements by adopting a substitute measure rather than for the

federal court to devise and order into effect its own plan.” Wise, 437 U.S. at 540;

see also United States v. Brown, 561 F.3d 420, 435 (5th Cir. 2009) (“[A]t least in

redistricting cases, district courts must offer governing bodies the first pass at

devising a remedy.”). If a new legislative plan is forthcoming, then that remedial

plan “will . . . be the governing law unless it, too, is challenged and found to

violate the Constitution.” Wise, 437 U.S. at 540; see also McGhee v. Granville

Cnty., N.C., 860 F.2d 110, 115 (4th Cir. 1988) (“[A] reviewing court must . . .

accord great deference to legislative judgments about the exact nature and scope

of the proposed remedy . . . .”).

On appeal, the County raises two challenges to the district court’s

order—specifically, that the district court erred in rejecting the Board’s remedial

6
Recently, the Court strongly underscored this point in the context of
a preclearance dispute under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. See Perry v. Perez,
132 S. Ct. 934, 940 (2012) (per curiam) (“Redistricting is ‘primarily the duty and
responsibility of the State.’” (quoting Chapman, 420 U.S. at 27)). Notably, the
Court observed: “[E]xperience has shown the difficulty of defining neutral legal
principles in this area, for redistricting ordinarily involves criteria and standards
that have been weighed and evaluated by the elected branches in the exercise of
their political judgment.” Id.

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plan on the grounds that (1) it conflicted with state law, and (2) it did not remedy

the Section 2 violation. As to the first, the County contends that the district court

erred in not deferring to its plan because “State law empowerment, [either]

procedural[] or substantive[], is not required for the legislative body to act to

remedy a Section 2 violation.” Aplt. Opening Br. at 20. “All that is required,”

the County maintains, “is that the legislative body remedy the violation, not

create a new violation, and comply with equal protection principles.” Id.

Regarding the second, the County maintains that “the Board’s Remedial Plan

remedies the Section 2 violation . . . because the presence of a supermajority of

American Indian voters in District 1 practically guarantees the ability of

American Indian voters to elect a candidate of choice in proportion to the

population of American Indians in Fremont County.” Id. at 34. We find our

resolution of the County’s first argument to be dispositive; therefore, we need

not—and do not—address its second.

As an issue of law, we review de novo the question of whether the Board’s

remedial scheme is a “legislative plan” owed deference by the district court. See

Gingles, 478 U.S. at 79 (recognizing that in Section 2 disputes, the district court’s

legal determinations—including mixed questions of law and fact—are reviewed

de novo). Our ultimate review of the appropriateness of the district court’s

chosen remedy, however, is only for abuse of discretion. See Connor, 431 U.S. at

415.

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 The threshold issue presented by this appeal is whether the Board’s

remedial scheme is a legislative plan, and thus owed substantial deference. See

Wise, 437 U.S. at 540; see also Tallahassee Branch of NAACP v. Leon Cnty.,

Fla., 827 F.2d 1436, 1438 (11th Cir. 1987) (“[F]ederal courts must defer to the

judgment of a state legislative body in the area of reapportionment. Principles of

federalism and common sense mandate deference to a plan which has been

legislatively enacted.”). If not, then the plan that the court put into place—even

if affirmatively supported by Appellees—is deemed to be a court-ordered plan,

and “[a] more stringent standard is applied . . . because a federal court, lacking

the political authoritativeness that the legislature can bring to the task, must act

circumspectly, and in a manner free from any taint of arbitrariness or

discrimination.” Wise, 437 U.S. at 541 (quoting Connor, 431 U.S. at 415)

(internal quotation marks omitted); see Abrams v. Johnson, 521 U.S. 74, 98

(1997) (“Court-ordered districts are held to higher standards of population

equality than legislative ones.”); see also Tallahassee Branch of NAACP, 827

F.2d at 1438 (“When a reapportionment plan is prepared by the district court,

‘equitable considerations demand a close scrutiny and mandate the fashioning of a

near-optimal apportionment plan.’” (quoting Seastrunk v. Burns, 772 F.2d 143,

151 (5th Cir. 1985))). In such circumstances, the Supreme Court has instructed

that, “[a]mong other requirements, a court-drawn plan should prefer single-

member districts over multimember districts, absent persuasive justification to the

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contrary.” Wise, 437 U.S. at 540; see also Chapman, 420 U.S. at 26–27 (“We

hold today that unless there are persuasive justifications, a court-ordered

reapportionment plan . . . must avoid use of multimember districts, and, as well,

must ordinarily achieve the goal of population equality with little more than de

minimis variation.”). Thus, if the Board’s remedial scheme is not a legislative

plan, the district court’s adoption here of a single-member district plan was,

absent compelling circumstances militating toward a different outcome, almost

assuredly a proper exercise of its discretion. The County makes no serious

argument to the contrary. Cf. Aplt. Opening Br. at 12 (eliding the district court’s

exercise of discretion in adopting single-member districts, and noting that the

only “standard of review is de novo,” and that is “because this appeal involves

only the district court’s legal conclusions”).

Instead, the County expends a considerable amount of energy arguing that

the Board’s remedial plan is, in fact, a legislative one. It avers that “the Board is

the duly elected legislative body for the citizens of Fremont County and it

exercised its political and policy judgment based on local conditions and

dynamics in preparing its Remedial Plan,” and that, “[t]herefore, the Board’s

Remedial Plan is a legislative plan, entitled to substantial deference, even though

the Board did not have the legislative power to change the electoral system.” Id.

at 16.

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 In support of its position, the County relies on Wise v. Lipscomb, a case it

considers “on all fours” with the current dispute. Id. at 13. As the County reads

it, in Wise, “the Supreme Court determined that a city council’s remedial plan was

legislative and entitled to deference even if, due to conflicts with State law, the

city council did not possess the legislative power to enact the plan.” Id.

However, Wise does not aid the County’s cause.

Wise is a plurality opinion, and the Court diverged on the important point

of whether the purported conflict with state law was relevant to whether the city

council’s remedial action should be deemed a legislative plan. The plaintiffs

there pointed out the apparent conflict, “suggest[ing] that the city was without

power to enact the ordinance [involving single-member districts] because the at-

large system declared unconstitutional was established by the City Charter and

because, under the Texas Constitution and Texas statutory law the Charter cannot

be amended without a vote of the people.” See Wise, 437 U.S. at 544 (citations

omitted). Justice White announced the opinion of the Court and was joined by

Justice Stewart. He agreed with the district court, which determined that,

“[a]lthough the Council itself had no power to change the . . . system as long as

the Charter provision remained intact, once the Charter provision was declared

unconstitutional, and, in effect, null and void, the Council was free to exercise its

legislative powers which it did by enacting the [new] plan.” Id.

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 Justice White reasoned: “When the City Council reapportioned itself by

means of a resolution and ordinance, it was not purporting to amend the City

Charter but only to exercise its legislative powers as Dallas’[s] governing body.”

Id. Important to Justice White’s conclusion was the fact that “[t]he record

suggest[ed] no statutory, state constitutional, or judicial prohibition upon the

authority of the City Council to enact a municipal election plan under [these]

circumstances.” Id. at 544 n.8 (emphasis added). “In short, Justice White found

that the commission did not lack authority, but rather had authority to reapportion

itself.” Tallahassee Branch of NAACP, 827 F.2d at 1442 (Godbold, J.,

dissenting).

In contrast, Justice Powell, who concurred in the judgment, along with

Chief Justice Burger, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Rehnquist, asserted that

“[t]he essential point is that the Dallas City Council exercised a legislative

judgment, reflecting the policy choices of the elected representatives of the

people, rather than the remedial directive of a federal court.” Wise, 437 U.S. at

548 (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (emphasis

added). “Th[e] rule of deference to local legislative judgments remains in force,”

Justice Powell concluded, “even if . . . our examination of state law suggests that

the local body lacks authority to reapportion itself.” Id.

The County contends that Justice Powell’s opinion is controlling, citing the

Supreme Court’s opinion in Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188 (1977). In

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Marks, the Supreme Court held: “When a fragmented Court decides a case and no

single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, ‘the

holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who

concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds . . . .’” Id. at 193 (quoting

Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 169 n.15 (1976) (plurality opinion)). “In

practice, however, the Marks rule produces a determinative holding ‘only when

one opinion is a logical subset of other, broader opinions.’” United States v.

Carrizales-Toledo, 454 F.3d 1142, 1151 (10th Cir. 2006) (quoting King v.

Palmer, 950 F.2d 771, 781 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (en banc)). Thus, for example, one

inquiry under Marks might be whether “the concurrence posits a narrow test to

which the plurality must necessarily agree as a logical consequence of its own,

broader position.” King, 950 F.2d at 782 (emphasis added); accord Homeward

Bound, Inc. v. Hissom Mem’l Ctr., 963 F.2d 1352, 1359 (10th Cir. 1992). “When,

however, one opinion supporting the judgment does not fit entirely within a

broader circle drawn by the others, Marks is problematic.” King, 950 F.2d at 782;

see Homeward Bound, 963 F.2d at 1359; see also Rappa v. New Castle Cnty., 18

F.3d 1043, 1057 (3d Cir. 1994) (“[I]t is not always possible to discover a single

standard that legitimately constitutes the narrowest ground for the decision.”).

“We do not apply Marks when the various opinions supporting the Court’s

decision are mutually exclusive.” Carrizales-Toledo, 454 F.3d at 1151; see

United States v. Alcan Aluminum Corp., 315 F.3d 179, 189 (2d Cir. 2003) (“When

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it is not possible to discover a single standard that legitimately constitutes the

narrowest ground for a decision on that issue, there is then no law of the land

because no one standard commands the support of a majority of the Supreme

Court.”); Rappa, 18 F.3d at 1058 (discussing unsuccessful application of the

Marks rule and that “[i]n such cases, no particular standard constitutes the law of

the land, because no single approach can be said to have the support of a majority

of the Court”).

As explicated above, the Marks rule does not avail the County. Indeed, the

rule actually cuts against the County by suggesting that Justice White’s decision

is controlling. Justice Powell would oblige federal courts to give deference to the

policy choices of local governments in redistricting, irrespective of whether those

choices are authorized by state law. Justice White, on the other hand, would

condition federal-court deference on a determination that local governments were

exercising their policy-making, redistricting powers within the authorized

boundaries of state law. It is patent that Justice Powell’s view is not a “logical

subset,” King, 950 F.2d at 781, of Justice White’s: Those adopting the view of

Justice White’s opinion—which conditions federal-court deference on state-law

authorization—would not “necessarily agree as a logical consequence,” id. at 782,

of their view with Justice Powell’s position—under which state-law authorization

is irrelevant. Indeed, Justice White’s plurality opinion appears to actually

establish the narrower holding which, as a logical matter, is a subset of Justice

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Powell’s position. Specifically, Justice White’s opinion could be read as carving

out a subset of local-government redistricting decisions that are entitled to

federal-court deference—that is, those authorized by state law. See Homeward

Bound, 963 F.2d at 1359 (applying Marks’s rule and “read[ing] the plurality

opinion as setting forth a narrower standard” because it imposed an additional

substantive showing that must be satisfied to justify relief). Those embracing

Justice Powell’s position—according federal deference to all local-government

redistricting decisions—seemingly would be logically compelled to agree, at a

minimum, that this subset of local-government redistricting decisions, which are

authorized by state law, should be given federal-court deference. See King, 950

F.2d at 781 (“In essence, the narrowest opinion must represent a common

denominator of the Court’s reasoning; it must embody a position implicitly

approved by at least five Justices who support the judgment.”). Therefore,

viewed through the lens of Marks, not only does the Court’s decision in Wise not

help the County, it actually appears to undermine its position. One thing is clear

under Marks: Justice Powell’s concurrence does not establish the controlling law

of the land. 7 Whether that controlling status should be accorded to Justice

White’s plurality opinion is a question that we need not decide here. Suffice it to

7
We recognize that the Eleventh Circuit has accorded controlling
effect to Justice Powell’s concurrence regarding the issue before us. See
Tallahassee Branch of NAACP, 827 F.2d at 1439–40. However, that court did not
rely upon Marks in reaching its conclusion and, therefore, we do not find its
reading of the import of Wise’s multiple opinions to be persuasive.

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say, we find Justice White’s opinion persuasive, especially given our

view—explicated below—that, in the context of presiding over the

implementation of Section 2 remedial plans, federal courts owe their deference

first and foremost to legislators of sovereign States, and only through them to

local governmental entities.

We acknowledge that the County does not rely on the Marks rule, alone, in

advocating for the substance of Justice Powell’s position. Specifically, the

County cites the Court’s later opinion in McDaniel v. Sanchez, 452 U.S. 130

(1981), and contends that Justice Powell’s position was “endorsed” by Sanchez.

Aplt. Opening Br. at 15. Although the Court in Sanchez deemed Justice Powell’s

view instructive on the question of whether state-law authority was necessary for

a local-government redistricting plan to be deemed a legislative plan, and

concluded that Justice Powell’s negative answer to that question “foreshadowed

[its] holding,” Sanchez, 452 U.S. at 146, the Court repeatedly stressed that “it

[was] concerned only with the question whether the reapportionment plan

submitted to the District Court should be considered a legislative plan for

purposes of preclearance under § 5 [of the Voting Rights Act],” id. at 139

(emphasis added). See generally 42 U.S.C. § 1973c(a) (setting forth the

requirements of § 5); Riley v. Kennedy, 553 U.S. 406, 412 (2008) (“Section 5

requires covered jurisdictions to obtain what has come to be known as

‘preclearance’ from the District Court for the District of Columbia or the DOJ

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before ‘enact[ing] or seek[ing] to administer’ any alteration of their practices or

procedures affecting voting.” (alterations in original) (quoting 42 U.S.C. §

1973c(a))); League of United Latin Am. Citizens, Dist. 19 v. City of Boerne, 659

F.3d 421, 431 n.14 (5th Cir. 2011) (discussing § 5’s preclearance process).

That the holding of Sanchez is firmly rooted in the distinct context of

preclearance under § 5 is readily apparent from the Court’s description of the

issue before it:

We granted certiorari to decide whether the preclearance
requirement of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended,
applies to a reapportionment plan submitted to a Federal District
Court by the legislative body of a covered jurisdiction in
response to a judicial determination that the existing
apportionment of its electoral districts is unconstitutional. . . .
[T]he District Court held that the plan submitted to it in this case
was a judicial plan and thus excepted from the requirements of
§ 5. . . . [T]he Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed; it
held that because the plan had been prepared by a legislative
body, it was a legislative plan within the coverage of § 5. We are
persuaded that Congress intended to require compliance with the
statutory preclearance procedures under the circumstances of this
case.

Sanchez, 452 U.S. at 131–33 (footnotes omitted). Thus, the focus of the Sanchez

Court was on determining what should be deemed a legislative plan in the discrete

setting of § 5 preclearance, with its unique policy concerns. As the Court noted,

in the preclearance setting “it is not sufficient to demonstrate that the new plan is

constitutional; the covered jurisdiction also has the burden of demonstrating that

the districting changes are not motivated by a discriminatory purpose and will not

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have an adverse impact on minority voters.” Id. at 137. Indicative of the Court’s

significant efforts to determine the right answer for the unique context of § 5 to

this legislative-plan inquiry, the Court turned to legislative history when it found

“sufficient ambiguity in the statutory language.” Id. at 147. The Court observed

that “[t]he prophylactic purposes of the § 5 remedy are achieved by automatically

requiring ‘review of all voting changes prior to implementation by the covered

jurisdictions.’” Id. at 151 (quoting S. Rep. No. 94-295, at 15 (1975)). And the

Court suggested that evident in the legislative history was Congress’s view that

permitting covered jurisdictions to avoid preclearance requirements by submitting

their plans to courts and thereafter claiming that the plans are excepted from

preclearance requirements because the submission has transformed them into

judicial plans would not aid and possibly would impede the successful

implementation of § 5’s purposes. See id. at 151. It was in this unique context

that Sanchez endorsed Justice Powell’s view from Wise and held that “[t]he

application of the statute [i.e., § 5] also is not dependent upon any showing that

the [local government apportioning entity] had authority under state law to enact

the apportionment plan at issue in this case.” Id. at 152 (emphasis added).

Consequently, we agree with Judge Godbold (writing in dissent) who

concluded that Sanchez does not “imply that the Court adopted Justice Powell’s

Wise opinion” for application outside of the § 5 setting. Tallahassee Branch of

NAACP, 827 F.2d at 1446 (Godbold, J., dissenting). More specifically, as Judge

- 20 -
Godbold noted, “Sanchez did not address the issue we must decide, which is

whether the same definition of legislative plan should apply in both a § 2 and a §

5 preclearance case.” Id. at 1447. He answered in the negative and, in particular,

reasoned as follows:

The issue involved in a § 5 proceeding is different from
that before us. Under § 5 the legislative body must demonstrate
that the proposed plan is constitutional, that it was not motivated
by a discriminatory purpose, and that it will not have an adverse
impact on minority voters. A § 5 inquiry asks whether a
legislature can enact a proposed plan; if the plan gets § 5
preclearance it may become effective. Section 5 does not address
in any fashion questions of whether the legislative body acted
legally under state law in fashioning a plan.

While a legislatively enacted reapportionment plan is the
preferred remedy after a judicial finding of unconstitutional
apportionment, I believe that the Supreme Court cases
articulating this preference do not contemplate that a legislature
can satisfy this responsibility—and therefore avoid the more
stringent requirements applicable to court-ordered plans—by
submitting a plan that not only has not been enacted pursuant to
valid state procedures governing reapportionment but also has in
fact been fashioned in derogation of those procedures.

Id. Therefore, like Judge Godbold, we conclude that the County’s reliance on

Sanchez as an endorsement of Justice Powell’s position in Wise is unavailing.

The County contends, and it must be admitted, that “Section 2 contemplates

that State law will be displaced,” Aplt. Opening Br. at 29 (capitalization altered),

and that “Wyoming law provides no permissible options to remedy the Section 2

violation identified by the district court” without some portion of state law being

- 21 -
violated, id. at 24. For example, there is no dispute that ordinarily under

Wyoming law adoption of a plan of single-member districts for a five-member

Board would necessitate a petition and a vote of the people. Wyo. Stat. Ann. §

18-3-501(g); see also Aplt. Opening Br. at 31 (“The electoral system in five-

member Boards is at large and the Board is not empowered to elect any other

system of districting unless a referendum election, initiated through the petition

procedure set out above, is held and passed by the electorate.”). However, the

mere fact that some state laws may necessarily need to be displaced to permit the

effectuation of a federal civil-rights remedy under Section 2 does not mean that

local governmental bodies like the County may unnecessarily—as a matter of

preference—disregard the dictates of state law in fashioning their plans and still

claim the judicial deference for their handiwork that is traditionally accorded to

legislative plans. 8 Cf. McGhee, 860 F.2d at 118 (“If a vote dilution violation is

8
The County looks to two district court decisions for support: United
States v. Village of Port Chester, 704 F. Supp. 2d 411 (S.D.N.Y. 2010), and
United States v. Euclid City School Board, 632 F. Supp. 2d 740 (N.D. Ohio
2009). In both cases, a legislative plan was challenged on the basis that it
conflicted with state law because it employed cumulative voting, a procedure not
explicitly endorsed by the laws of the States at issue. The court in Village of Port
Chester did not find this problematic because cumulative voting was not expressly
prohibited by state law either, and also was not in tension with any other state
election laws. See 704 F. Supp. 2d at 449. Such reasoning, however, actually
may be read as working against the County’s position because the court did not
reject the plaintiffs’ challenge on the basis that compliance with state law is
irrelevant—which seemingly would have been the natural response of a judicial
adherent of Justice Powell’s position in Wise. See Wise, 437 U.S. at 548 (Powell,
J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (noting that “[t]he essential
(continued...)

- 22 -
established, the appropriate remedy is to restructure the districting system to

eradicate, to the maximum extent possible by that means, the dilution proximately

caused by that system; it is not to eradicate the dilution by altering other electoral

laws, practices, and structures that were not actually challenged by the claim as

made.” (emphasis omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted)).

In remedial situations under Section 2 where state laws are necessarily

abrogated, the Supremacy Clause appropriately works to suspend those laws

because they are an unavoidable obstacle to the vindication of the federal right.

See Barber ex rel. Barber v. Colo. Dept. of Revenue, 562 F.3d 1222, 1232 (10th

Cir. 2009) (“A state statute must yield when it conflicts with a federal statute, as

in the case where the challenged state statute stands as an obstacle to the

accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.”

(alterations omitted) (quoting Crosby v. Nat’l Foreign Trade Council, 530 U.S.

8
(...continued)
point is that the Dallas City Council exercised a legislative judgment”). In Euclid
City School Board, although the district court spoke in emphatic tones about the
need to give deference to the apportionment judgment of political governmental
entities, because of deficiencies in the government’s presentation, the court was
not compelled to squarely address the issue presented here. See 632 F. Supp. 2d
at 750 n.9 (noting that the government “offered without citation or explanation”
the assertion that the deference that is “usually appropriate” when courts review
remedial apportionment plans was not appropriate in that case because of a
conflict with state law). The court’s analysis in Euclid City School Board is
skeletal at best, and, ultimately, it is unpersuasive. In any event, unlike the state-
law silence in both cases, Wyoming law clearly contemplated that there would be
one of only two potential election schemes for county commissioners; neither
scheme is reflected in the remedial plans submitted by the Board.

- 23 -
363, 373 (2000)) (internal quotations marks omitted)); NCNB Tex. Nat’l Bank v.

Cowden, 895 F.2d 1488, 1494 (5th Cir. 1990) (“[T]he [S]upremacy [C]lause

empowers Congress ‘to pre-empt state laws to the extent it is believed that such

action is necessary to achieve its purposes.” (emphasis added) (quoting City of

New York v. FCC, 486 U.S. 57, 63 (1988))).

The same cannot be said where in the course of remedying an adjudged

Section 2 violation a local governmental entity gratuitously disregards state

laws—laws that need not be disturbed to cure the Section 2 violation. See

Cleveland Cnty. Ass’n for Gov’t by the People v. Cleveland Cnty. Bd. of

Comm’rs, 142 F.3d 468, 477 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (per curiam) (“[I]f a violation of

federal law necessitates a remedy barred by state law, the state law must give

way; if no such violation exists, principles of federalism dictate that state law

governs.” (emphasis added)); 9 cf. Bodker v. Taylor, No. Civ.A.1:02-CV-999ODE,

9
Although not directly on point, we believe that Cleveland County is
instructive to our decision. In Cleveland County, residents challenged a
settlement plan adopted by the local board of commissioners in response to a
lawsuit by the NAACP alleging voting dilution. The plan, which increased the
size of the board of commissioners from five to seven members and provided that
voters would be permitted to cast only four votes for the seven positions, was
later incorporated into a consent decree issued by the district court. Cleveland
Cnty., 142 F.3d at 469.

The challengers in that case asserted, inter alia, that the plan’s adoption
was contrary to state law, which had explicit provisions governing alterations of
the structure of county boards and the method of election of candidates. The
district court granted summary judgment for the county, but the D.C. Circuit
(continued...)

- 24 -
2002 WL 32587312, at *5 (N.D. Ga. June 5, 2002) (“For the court to defer to a

redistricting plan proposed by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, one

that has not been considered by the General Assembly, would give to Fulton

County that which the state of Georgia intended to retain, and in so doing would

9
(...continued)
reversed. The appellate court concluded that, “[r]ead on its face, state law denies
the Board the authority unilaterally to alter its structure and manner of election
simply by agreeing to do so.” Id. at 476.

In rendering its decision, the D.C. Circuit emphasized that no Section 2
violation had been found. Id. at 477. Had “the election plan set forth in the
consent decree . . . intended to remedy an admitted or adjudged violation of the
Voting Rights Act,” the court explained, “the fact that the Board’s actions
collided with the state statutory scheme just discussed would not stand in the way
of the plan’s implementation.” Id. However, it cautioned that even in those
situations, the board’s discretion would not be limitless—state law could be
superseded only “if such supersession is necessary to remedy a violation of
federal law,” because “principles of federalism dictate that state law governs”
unless “federal law necessitates a remedy barred by state law.” Id. (emphases
added). See also Harper v. City of Chicago Heights, 223 F.3d 593, 601 (7th Cir.
2000) (“The district court’s plan suffers from the same procedural flaw as did the
consent decree when it was first presented to this court: the court’s plan modifies
the election methods set forth in the Illinois Municipal Code without either going
through the statutorily required procedures for making such changes to electoral
methods or making a judicial finding that it was necessary to make these changes
in order to comply with federal law.” (emphasis added)); Perkins v. City of
Chicago Heights, 47 F.3d 212, 217 (7th Cir. 1995) (“Any modifications which
must be accomplished through a referendum cannot be made by the consent
decree unless the court finds that the statutory provisions would violate federal
law and that such changes are necessary to ensure compliance with federal law.”
(emphasis added) (footnote omitted)). Cleveland County and the other cited
authorities evidence a judicial sensitivity—grounded at least principally in
federalism policy—to gratuitously abrogating state law in effectuating remedial
voting plans. This sensitivity should not be lessened simply because the request
to effect such an abrogation is made by a subordinate political subdivision of the
State.

- 25 -
raise serious federalism concerns.”). In that situation, the conflict with state law

is not a necessary consequence of the remedial operation of federal law but,

rather, it reflects a mere policy disagreement between the political subdivision

and the State that gave it life.

Our deference must run first and foremost to the legislative decision-

making of the sovereign State and, only through it, to its subordinate political

subdivision. After all, it is the State that imbues the political subdivision with the

apportionment power, and the subdivision cannot stand on an independent and

equal footing with respect to its creator. Cf. Holt Civic Club v. City of

Tuscaloosa, 439 U.S. 60, 71 (1978) (“This Court has often recognized that

political subdivisions such as cities and counties are created by the State ‘as

convenient agencies for exercising such of the governmental powers of the state

as may be entrusted to them.’” (emphasis added) (quoting Hunter v. Pittsburgh,

207 U.S. 161, 178 (1907))); Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 575 (1964)

(“Political subdivisions of States—counties, cities, or whatever—never were and

never have been considered as sovereign entities. Rather, they have been

traditionally regarded as subordinate governmental instrumentalities created by

the State to assist in the carrying out of state governmental functions.” (emphasis

added)).

- 26 -
 When a political subdivision of a State substantively contravenes the laws

of that State—at least insofar as that contravention is not sanctioned by higher

federal law—it no longer acts as an agent of that sovereign, and therefore is due

no federal-court deference. A natural corollary of this is that any remedial plan

proposed by a political subdivision of a State cannot be deemed a legislative

plan—i.e., a plan that is a valid expression of legislative process and policy

judgment—unless it is bounded by state laws to the maximum extent possible.

In resisting this conclusion, the County holds on to the Supreme Court’s

warning that “[d]istricting inevitably has sharp political impact and . . . political

decisions must be made by those charged with the task.” Weiser, 412 U.S. at

795–96 (emphasis added). The County’s Board says that it is so charged. See

Aplt. Opening Br. at 28. But this is only partly true. In Weiser, “those charged

with the task” were the Texas state legislators. See Weiser, 412 U.S. at 796

(“Here th[e redistricting] decisions were made by the [state] legislature in pursuit

of what were deemed important state interests.”). This makes the matter

simpler—any potential conflict with state statutory laws that results from the state

legislators’ actions could be discounted based on the fact that those state

legislators were entitled, as a collective, to change those laws absent some

constitutional prohibition. 10

10
Cf. Richardson, 384 U.S. at 85 (noting that a “[s]tate’s freedom of
(continued...)

- 27 -
 Not so in this case. The County’s Board, while a legislative body, is a

subordinate legislative entity; it is not inherently empowered to ignore or alter

statutory requirements (and thus the policy judgments) of the superior legislative

body of the State—that is, the Wyoming legislature. Cf. United Bldg. & Constr.

Trades Council of Camden Cnty. & Vicinity v. Mayor of Camden, 465 U.S. 208,

215 (1984) (“[A] municipality is merely a political subdivision of the State from

which its authority derives.”); Hunter, 207 U.S. at 178 (“The number, nature, and

duration of the powers conferred upon [subordinate legislative entities] . . . rests

in the absolute discretion of the state.”); Ralls Cnty. Court v. United States, 105

U.S. 733, 737 (1881) (“[O]rganizations for local government, by whatever name

they may be called, have only such powers as the legislatures of their respective

States see fit to delegate to them.”); Qwest Corp. v. City of Santa Fe, 380 F.3d

1258, 1268 (10th Cir. 2004) (noting that state law may “den[y] a . . . municipality

the power to regulate a given subject”); Save Palisade FruitLands v. Todd, 279

F.3d 1204, 1207 (10th Cir. 2002) (“[C]ounties . . . are simply political

subdivisions of the state government that possess only those functions that are

10
(...continued)
choice to devise substitutes for an apportionment plan found unconstitutional . . .
should not be restricted beyond the clear commands of the Equal Protection
Clause” (emphasis added)); City of Herriman v. Bell, 590 F.3d 1176, 1184 (10th
Cir. 2010) (“[T]he Supreme Court has consistently favored the political
judgments of state legislatures in structuring political subdivisions within states
and defining the electoral community making up those entities.” (emphasis
added)).

- 28 -
granted to them by the constitution or by statute, along with implied powers

necessary to carry those functions out.”). Were we to ignore the import of state

law in determining whether to give deference to a legislative plan proposed by a

state subdivision, we would be granting deference to the wrong authority. We

would, in essence, be using the authority of the federal courts to elevate a

subordinate over its superior.

Put into context, if Wyoming law does not allow for a hybrid voting

scheme, then it is only the dictate of this federal court that would give the County

the authority to implement its plan. Where the Supremacy Clause’s effect is to

temporarily suspend the application of a conflicting state law, the creation of a

remedial plan by a State’s political subdivision that in all other ways comports

with the requirements of state law is a valid exercise of “legislative judgment,

reflecting the policy choices of the elected representatives of the people.” Wise,

437 U.S. at 548 (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment).

However, where that political subdivision’s remedial plan contravenes state laws

that have not been remedially abrogated by the Supremacy Clause, the plan could

not be considered a valid exercise in legislative judgment because it would not

respect the “policy choices” of the dominant sovereign from which the local

governmental entity’s authority flows. Instead, such a plan merely would

enshrine parochial interests—not shared by the “elected representatives of the

people” of that State—and its only claim to legitimacy would be that which a

- 29 -
federal court would be granting it by labeling it a legislative plan. However, we

are hard-pressed to see how such a plan could be deemed such.

The misguided and problematic nature of the County’s position becomes

clear when we extrapolate and consider some of its implications. At oral

argument, the County candidly suggested that, under its view, not only would it

be entitled to ignore the state law restricting county elections to either at-large or

single-member district voting, but it also would be free to ignore any other state

election law, so long as the resulting plan does not either violate the Constitution

or Section 2. Thus, in addition to adopting the hybrid election scheme, the

County expressly noted in oral argument that, “in theory,” it could have

incorporated into its remedial plan a provision that the Board size be increased to

fifty members, Oral Arg. at 09:58–10:00, and the Wyoming legislature—that has

statutorily prescribed a commissioner limit of one-tenth of that number—would

have been powerless to stop it. This is surely not what Congress intended the

Voting Rights Act to be—carte blanche for local governments seeking to flout

otherwise valid state laws.

Therefore, we hold that where a local governmental body’s proposed

remedial plan for an adjudged Section 2 violation unnecessarily conflicts with

state law, it is not a legislative plan entitled to deference by the federal courts.

As this was the case here, we also conclude that the district court did not err in

- 30 -
refusing to defer to the Board’s plan. We further conclude that the district court

did not abuse its discretion in implementing its single-member-district plan.

Indeed, as previously noted, the County makes no serious argument to the

contrary.

In the absence of a valid legislative plan, any redistricting plan adopted by

the court would properly be deemed a court-ordered plan. As the district court

properly noted, the Supreme Court has mandated the use of single-member

districts in court-ordered plans—as opposed to legislative plans—when “there is

no compelling reason for doing otherwise.” Aplt. App. at 222; see Chapman, 420

U.S. at 16 (describing some of the “practical weaknesses inherent” in

multimember districting plans). The County does not contend that a “compelling

reason” exists to deviate from this preferred arrangement (i.e., single-member

districts), nor does our independent review of the record suggest that there is one.

Accordingly, we conclude that the district court properly followed the Supreme

Court’s guidance regarding single-member districts and it did not abuse its

discretion when crafting its own remedial plan.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s order that

rejected the County’s proffered Section 2 remedial plan and implemented a plan

- 31 -
of its own design. 11 Our ruling here today does not foreclose the possibility that

the County may ultimately implement its desired plan through the normal

processes established by Wyoming law. We do not opine on whether such a plan

would satisfy the strictures of the Constitution or Section 2. We simply hold here

that federal courts owe no deference to Section 2 remedial plans offered by

political subdivisions of a State, when those plans unnecessarily conflict with

state law, and that the district court here exercised sound and permissible

discretion in adopting its chosen plan.

11
The County's renewed motion to expedite proceedings is denied as moot.

- 32 -
No. 10-8071, Large v. Fremont County

KELLY, Circuit Judge, concurring in result.

Though the matter is not free from doubt, Justice White’s plurality opinion

in Wise v. Lipscomb, 437 U.S. 535 (1978), is controlling here. Given the lack of

a majority opinion in that case, we are guided by the position taken by the

Justices who concurred in the judgment on the narrowest grounds. Marks v.

United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977). Justice White’s opinion is the narrowest

ground for the judgment in Wise—while Justice Powell looked only to the

exercise of legislative power to determine what constitutes a “legislative plan,”

Justice White also required that the exercise of legislative power not conflict with

any state or local law. Applying that latter principle, the Board’s plan would not

be considered a legislative plan entitled to deference.

McDaniel v. Sanchez, 452 U.S. 130 (1981), is problematic because it did

not require any legislative compliance with state law when enacting an

apportionment plan, relying in part on Justice Powell’s broader concurrence in

Wise. Id. at 152. To be sure, McDaniel was a § 5 case, but it does seem peculiar

that the Court would create one definition of “legislative plan” for § 5

compliance, and another for § 2 compliance. Tallahassee Branch of NAACP v.

Leon Cnty. Fla., 827 F.2d 1436, 1440 (11th Cir. 1987). That said, McDaniel did

not address this problem, and Wise remains the case most on point in the § 2

context.