Voting Rights

The voting rights representation conducted by the firm has involved challenges to place-based polices to dilute the Black and Hispanic vote. Mr. Daniel has represented plaintiffs in significant voting rights cases that have expanded voting rights for Black and Hispanic voters. These cases include a 1982 Supreme Court victory concerning the City of Port Arthur City Council and the single-member City Council district system in the City of Dallas in 1990 that continues to be the method of electing City Council members today.

Of the two types of policies that have been used to suppress the Black and Hispanic vote, Mr. Daniel’s cases have concerned place-based voting issues. Beginning in the early in days of post-Reconstruction, state and local governments used both place-based and voter-based policies to eliminate or at least suppress the Black and Hispanic vote. The voter-based policies included literacy tests, poll-taxes, White only primaries, and ancestry requirements. These voter-based policies were designed to keep the Black and Hispanic vote below the effective vote needed to counter the racial bloc voting of the White electorate. The place-based policies included the use of at large elections for an entire set of elected representatives for which a majority White electorate controlled the outcome. The at large majority effectively eliminated majority Black or Hispanic candidates from electoral office. If single member districts were already in place, racial gerrymandering techniques to keep the Black and Hispanic vote below the effective vote needed to surmount the racial bloc voting of the White electorate. Sometimes this meant drawing an overwhelmingly minority populated district to limit the effect of the minority vote to electing one candidate rather than electing candidates in two more single member districts. Sometimes this required splitting up a majority Black or Hispanic area between two or more single member districts to minimize the effect of the minority vote in a single district. The place-based policies were usually combined with a majority vote requirement to ensure that the final electoral choice was made by the majority White electorate. Both the voter-based and the place-based policies were needed only to protect the electoral power of a White electorate that would not vote for and did not vote for any candidate that was not going to be the choice of a majority of the Whites voting in the election.

Mr. Daniel worked on a voting rights case in which the City of Port Arthur, Texas had annexed and consolidated with three White suburbs in order to restore a White majority vote controlling the at large election of the Port Arthur City Council. After the U.S. Department of Justice sided with the City against the Black voters, the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decided in favor of the Black voters holding that the combination of the City’s racial purpose to dilute the Black vote and the use of at large districts and the majority vote requirement justified rejection of the City’s election scheme. City of Port Arthur v. U.S., 459 U.S. 159, 160, 168 (1982). [1] 

Black Plaintiffs represented by Mr. Daniel and others sued the City of Dallas claiming that the City’s eight representatives elected from single member districts three at large elected representatives violated the voting rights of both Black and Hispanic voters. Ms. Beshara entered into representation of the Plaintiffs soon after she graduated from law school.

The District Court opinion held that the 8-3 election scheme did violate the Voting Rights Act. Williams v. City of Dallas, 734 F. Supp. 1317, 1415 (N.D. Tex. 1990). The existence of the White bloc vote was a key finding that led to this conclusion. The District Court entered an opinion that covered the history of race relations in general and in the City elections specifically that is thorough and well documented. The opinion sets out the lack of responsiveness by the City’s councilmen to the Black and Hispanic residents, to their issues, and to their neighborhood conditions in the City’s history. During the pendency of the case there two referendum elections and appeals. At its conclusion, the present 14 single member district, mayor at large plan was ordered by the Court, cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice as being in compliance with the Voting Rights Act and implemented by the City of Dallas. The first elections under the 14-1 plan were held in November 1991. Nine Whites, Four Blacks, and two Hispanic representatives were elected to represent Dallas. This Council included four women, also a first for Dallas.

The City of Dallas Municipal Archives has a website devoted to the history of the case. See https://dallascityhall.com/government/citysecretary/archives/Pages/Archives_14-1home.aspx

[1] Ms. Elizabeth Julian was also counsel for the plaintiffs in both the City of Port Arthur case and the City of Dallas single member district Williams v. City of Dallas case. After leaving the partnership Ms. Julian went on to be the President of what is now Legal Aid of Northwest Texas, the Assistant General Counsel for Civil Rights at HUD, the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at HUD, the Regional Director, HUD Region VI, and the Founder and long time President of the Inclusive Communities Project, Inc.