Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-25-1999

Abstract

Defendants-appellants the Town Board of the Town of Hempstead, New York (the "Board" or "Town Board"), and Gregory P. Peterson, Richard V. Guardino, Patrick A. Zagarino, Curtis Fisher, Joseph Ra, Anthony Santino and Joseph Kearney, in their official capacities as members of the Town Board,[1] appeal from a final judgment entered in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Gleeson, J.), following a bench trial, enjoining the Town of Hempstead from the use of an at-large voting method to elect members of the Town Board. The court determined that the at-large method violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, and ordered the Town Board to submit a remedial plan that would divide the Town of Hempstead (the "Town") into six single-member districts. The Town Board thereafter submitted two proposed plans, the first consisting of one single-member district and one multi-member district, which the district court determined violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court found that the alternative proposal of six single-member districts was consistent with the Equal Protection Clause and ordered that it be adopted by the Town Board.

For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

Comments

180 F.3d 476 (1999)

Dorothy GOOSBY and Samuel Prioleau, Plaintiffs-Appellees, Xavier Morales and Miladys Morales, Plaintiffs,

v.

TOWN BOARD OF THE TOWN OF HEMPSTEAD, NEW YORK, Gregory P. Peterson, Richard V. Guardino, Patrick A. Zagarino, Curtis Fisher, 477*477 Joseph Ra, Anthony Santino and Joseph Kearney in their official capacities as members of the Town Board of the Town of Hempstead, Defendants-Appellants, Nassau County Board of Elections, John Degrace, Steven Sabbath, in their official capacities as Commissioners of Elections of Nassau County, Defendants.

Docket No. 97-7403.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued June 15, 1998.

Decided June 25, 1999.

New York Law School location: File #2655, Box #139

Share

COinS