Mobile v. Bolden

Mobile v. Bolden
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 19, 1979 Reargued October 29, 1979 Decided April 22, 1980
Full case name	City of Mobile, Alabama, et al. v. Wiley L. Bolden, et al.
Citations	446 U.S. 55 (more) 100 S. Ct. 1490; 64 L. Ed. 2d 47
Case history
Prior	Judgment for plaintiffs, 423 F. Supp. 384 (S.D. Ala. 1976); affirmed, 571 F.2d 238 (5th Cir. 1978), probable jurisdiction noted, 439 U.S. 815 (1978).
Holding
Facially neutral electoral districting is constitutional, even if the at-large elections dilute the voting strength of black citizens.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart Byron White · Thurgood Marshall Harry Blackmun · Lewis F. Powell Jr. William Rehnquist · John P. Stevens
Case opinions
Plurality	Stewart, joined by Burger, Powell, Rehnquist
Concurrence	Blackmun (in result)
Concurrence	Stevens (in judgment)
Dissent	Brennan
Dissent	White
Dissent	Marshall
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. XIV, XV; 79 Stat. 437, as amended, 42 U.S.C. 1973

Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55 (1980), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that disproportionate effects alone, absent purposeful discrimination, are insufficient to establish a claim of racial discrimination affecting voting.^[1]

In Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960), which challenged new city boundaries that excluded virtually all black voters from Tuskegee, Alabama, the court had held that creating electoral districts which disenfranchised blacks violated the Fifteenth Amendment.^[2]