Race and Redistricting: the Shaw-Cromartie Cases.

Race and Redistricting: The Shaw-Cromartie Cases. By Tinsley E. Yarbrough. Landmark Law Cases and American Society. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, c. 2002. Pp. xiv, 225. Paper, $14.95, 0-7006-1219-X; cloth, $29.95, ISBN 0-7006-1218-1.)

Race and Redistricting is a tightly focused chronicle of the lengthy court battle over North Carolina's serpentine Twelfth Congressional District, which wound the 165-mile length of Interstate 85 between Durham and Gastonia prior to its shortening to 105 miles in 1997. The district was created by the General Assembly in 1992, and Duke law professor Robinson Everett challenged its constitutionality on the grounds that it was a race-based gerrymander. Everett's tenacity resulted in three Supreme Court cases, Shaw v. Reno (1993), Shaw v. Hunt (1996), and Cromartie v. Hunt (2001).

The 1990 census entitled North Carolina to an additional congressional representative but also gave the legislature the unenviable task of crafting districts that would pass muster with the Department of Justice. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had established "'preclearance' requirements" that made states and locales with histories of racial discrimination secure approval of the attorney general before enforcing new election or voting laws (p. 5). When the Justice Department indicated that a single black-majority district (the First District) would probably not satisfy preclearance requirements, the legislature added the Twelfth District.

Both drew criticism. Everett's first challenge that the districts violated standards of compactness and contiguity was dismissed by a federal district court panel of judges by a 2-1 vote. The Supreme Court upheld the appeal by a 5-4 margin, ordering a trial on the appellant's allegations. Thus ended Shaw I. However, the 1994 trial upheld the defendants' case by the same 2-1 result, the majority concluding that North Carolina's interest in complying with the Voting Rights Act was sufficiently compelling to justify the districts. Shaw v. Hunt, or Shaw II, was the plaintiffs' appeal to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in 1996 that the Twelfth District constituted a racial gerrymander not fulfilling a compelling state interest. Chief Justice William Rehnquist said the Court rejected what the majority viewed as the Justice Department's policy of maximizing black-majority districts.

Cromartie v. Hunt emerged from objections to the legislature's 1997 modification of the districts pursuant to the Shaw II decision. That plan survived preclearance and won unanimous approval of the district court. Nonetheless, Martin Cromartie, a friend of Robinson Everett, filed suit in district court and secured a summary judgment from a three-judge panel by a 2-1 margin. On appeal, the Supreme Court ordered a trial on the merits of the case, producing another 2-1 district court ruling for the plaintiffs and an appeal by the defendants. In 2001 the Supreme Court, with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor joining Shaw II dissenters, ruled 5-4 that the 1997 redistricting plan was constitutional.

Tinsley E. Yarbrough concludes that the high court's acceptance of race-conscious redistricting reduced the chances of future judicial interference in redistricting efforts. Significantly, this occurred just as North Carolina gained another congressional seat in the 2000 census. Race and Redistricting is well researched, and the prose is competent if a bit convoluted. Readers may find it problematic that the author of a book about race-based politics did not do more to integrate the post-Voting Rights Act race-based reshaping of southern and national politics. There is much on the law but perhaps not enough on society. Nonetheless, the book will be of value to legal scholars and others interested in the interplay between law and those who litigate and interpret it.

Appalachian State University 

MICHAEL WADE