City of Richmond v. United States

In 1970, the city of Richmond, Virginia (Richmond) (plaintiff) annexed a portion of neighboring Chesterfield County, Virginia. Before the annexation, 52 percent of Richmond’s residents were Black. The annexation increased Richmond’s population by nearly 50,000, but Richmond’s percentage of Black residents decreased to 42 percent. In 1971, the United States Supreme Court held that under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a city seeking to extend its boundaries through annexation had to demonstrate that the annexation had neither the purpose nor the effect of denying or abridging the city’s Black residents’ right to vote based on race. Following that decision, Virginia sought the United States attorney general’s approval of the Chesterfield annexation as required by § 5. The attorney general refused to approve the annexation after finding that the annexation had substantially decreased Richmond’s proportion of Black residents, which would inevitably dilute Black residents’ voting power. After a federal appeals court held in a related challenge to the Chesterfield annexation that the annexation was not racially motivated and had not infringed Black residents’ voting rights, Richmond asked the attorney general to reconsider. The attorney general did not respond, so Richmond sued the United States (defendant) in federal district court, seeking approval of the annexation. Richmond also submitted plans to the attorney general to create nine wards for city-council-voting purposes within Richmond: four majority-Black wards, four majority-White wards, and one ward split 59 percent White and 41 percent Black residents. The attorney general approved the plan, and Richmond and the attorney general jointly submitted the plan to the district court. However, the district court refused to approve the annexation, finding that (1) Richmond had not satisfactorily shown that the annexation was not motivated by diluting Black residents’ voting rights, and (2) Richmond’s proposed ward plan did not cure the annexation’s improper racial purpose or dissipate the annexation’s diluting effect. Richmond appealed.