Mr. SUMMER. That is not in the official copy, I do not believe just one moment.

I have an official copy that I had planned to give to the Attorney General, but I will be happy to give it to the subcommittee and submit it at another date in regard to the registration form so that that will finally be put to rest.

All three of those, which have been passed, have been certified by the Secretary of State.

Senator TUNNEY. General, you have indicated that the act makes a province out of the State of Mississippi, and once a State is included it is impossible to get out from under the provisions of the act. It is my understanding that the State of Alaska petitioned the District Court here in the District of Columbia, and it was able to get out from under. There are a number of other jurisdictions that have been able to get out from under-Rowan County, N.C.; Elmore County, Idaho; Apache, Navajo, and Pima Counties, Ariz.-but certain jurisdictions have not been able to get out.

For instance, Virginia tried to get out and was denied its petition in January of 1975. There are those who would argue that the States or the jurisdictions that remain covered are those who cannot demonstrate that they have eliminated racial discrimination in the election process. Those States and jurisdictions that can demonstrate that they have eliminated that kind of constitutional discrimination have been able to get out.

Can you respond to that?

Mr. SUMMER. Yes I can.

I think the instances that you speak of, you are speaking of counties which is a small government entity.

Senator TUNNEY. And the State of Alaska.

Mr. SUMMER. Perhaps the State of Alaska, which I doubt seriously, Senator, has enough blacks-they probably would like to have more, because I do not know what their population is, but I think I can say with all assurance that they have less than 1 percent blacks, so they simply do not, and have not, been faced with some of the problems that other States have been faced with. I may be wrong; I do not know the percentages; I would say that very clearly. But I would guess that their percentages are very small, and only, I would imagine also, that most of them have moved up there since Alaska has become a State. Senator TUNNEY. They have a lot of Eskimos and Indians.

Mr. SUMMER. Yes, sir, but they are not covered-Eskimos are not covered under the act.

Let us take my State and, as a practical matter of everyday living, we have 82 counties. Any order passed by a board of supervisors, any ordinance signed by those in those counties, any directive issued by the board of trustees for a hospital, the board of trustees for a school, that may, without knowing, violate a section of this law, as you know, Senator-you pointed out a while ago, and I heard someone say one time that 2 percent of the people never get the word on anything, and I do not doubt that; I think that is probably true. So with 410 county subdistricts, 3.000 governmental entities existing within the State of Mississippi, if one of them slips up and that is found to be a violation, then we have been extended for another 10-year period of time.

So it stands to reason that without intending to, that somewhere within those 3,000 entities, the men who police this thing are going to find something that they can hang their hat on. So that is the reason I say that the States that were covered in 1965 will never successfully get out from under this act because, as section 4 reads, you have to prove beyond a doubt that no test or device has been used for the last 10 years.

Senator, it would be impossible for me to make a survey and undertake the research that would be required to prove that this is not occurring. On the other hand, it would be very easy to take an individual case, known perhaps to someone else, simply to come into court and lay that down. And if the court finds-whether it be a directive, an order, an ordinance, or a law-we are refused and then we cannot even make an obligation for another 10 years. So that is why I say this act is really in perpetuity as far as we are concerned.

Senator TUNNEY. General, how about the fact that Mississippi has over 30 percent black population-maybe 35 percent black population-and only one person in the Mississippi Legislature out of 174 is black? The charge is made that the reason that has happened is because of racial gerrymandering and racially discriminatory at-large elections.

What is your response to that? I think that a person would normally infer, based upon the facts of the percentage of blacks in the population, that you would have more than 1 out of 174 members of the legislature who were of the black race.

Mr. SUMMER. I think I can answer that, Mr. Chairman.

Of course, all of this gerrymandering and reapportionment that has been discussed here today are not matters that come up under section 5, but they are matters that have been fought out in the district courts of the State, and have been ruled down by the circuit court.

The matters regarding redistricting and reapportionment-when the Supreme Court handed down the one-man-one-vote ruling, then it became necessary for the counties to redistrict in most instances. They would lead you to believe that the State of Mississippi pellmell all of a sudden decided to disenfranchise everybody and go into a redistricting and reapportionment, which is not true.

We went into the redistricting and reapportionment because of the Supreme Court decision of the one-man-one-vote rule. We were not under the impression, nor do I believe that it is presently required insofar as gerrymandering is concerned, I think that the one-man-onevote rule was followed. I do not read into this law, or any other law, a situation that would be gerrymandering in reverse that would set up in the laws a specific position where blacks-only blacks can be elected to office. I do not read into this law the purpose of it being to elect black officials, even though that would be incidental to the law.

A lot of emphasis has been placed on this subject. I am glad you brought it up, because of how many blacks have been elected to office. It is my understanding that the purpose of this act was to assure free black participation in the political process, not to assure the election of black candidates, which I do not think anyone can do.

And thus the committee and the Congress, acting under the same authority that they acted under in passing this law, should simply disenfranchise the whites until all blacks are elected to office, and

then perhaps put a few back on every year. That is the only way I know of that you can absolutely assure the election of blacks to office.

I do not think that this law addresses itself to the election of blacks to office. There has been no gerrymandering other than under the oneman-one-vote rule, and I have a recent decision from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals which, of course, governs the State of Mississippi and others which says if blacks freely participate in the elective process-which they do in Mississippi, and have for some number of years then you cannot take race into consideration when you are redistricting or reapportioning. To do so would be in violation of the Constitution. There are 34,000 registered blacks, I believe, in Hinds County.

Let us take what Mr. Parker took. There have been a number of black candidates run in elections, and there have been only as many as 12,000 votes cast where, if the blacks had gone to the polls, they could have elected any black they wanted to to office. The history of Hinds County-and blacks have been free to participate there for a long, long time, so that we can use that as an example-there is always a number of black candidates, but the blacks simply do not vote for them.

I have a chart here from the Jackson, Miss. precincts which are almost 100 percent black-in fact, some of them are 100 percent blackin the 1972 congressional election where a black leader ran for Congress, and I believe there was only one-and I can see here that I am correct-out of 15 totally black precincts the black led in only one. How do you make a black vote for a black? I do not know. And is that good? Is it Americanism to require a black voter to vote for a black?

James Meredith-of Ole Miss fame-ran for Congress recently and led the ticket. He ran as a Democrat-ran on the Democratic ticket. He led the ticket in the first primary because he had the backing of Charles Evers and it was a black district. I mean, it was a district that has a considerable number of blacks in it. And no sooner than the vote was counted on the same day, he withdrew-he resigned as a Democratic candidate and said he was going to run as an Independent, and he was doing so in order that he could be the third man between the Republican and Democrat and get the sole black vote and get elected. He announced that as a public policy.

The other blacks who were responsible leaders of the city immediately disowned that theory. And he recently ran for city commissioner, I believe-Mr. Chairman, I could be wrong-but he ran for some office within the city of Jackson where there are some 34,000 black votes of which he received 1,500 votes.

I will cite another example. Dr. Henry, who is a well-known, wellrespected black leader in Mississippi, ran for the State senate-I mean, as a member of the House of Representatives-in a county that is 2-to-1 black. And Dr. Henry was not elected. Now if any black should have been elected in Mississippi, he should have been, because the blacks outnumber the whites 2-to-1 in the county in which he ran.

So to say that there has been discrimination, or that anybody has been responsible for blacks not being elected to office is simply to make a mistake, because that is not true. Charles Evers ran for Governor in the State of Mississippi; he received almost 200,000 votes. So it is

obvious from the evidence here, and from what I have shown you, that the blacks could have elected anybody in Jackson anytime they wanted to if they had gotten together.

But I think, very happily, the majority of the blacks in Mississippi-as well as the majority of the whites-look to the qualifications of the candidates, be he black or be he white. I will go the reverse, now, Senator, because it goes the other way.

In a northern community of some 30,000 citizens, which has only a small 2 to 4 percent black population, a black was recently elected to the town council. Which means that the whites will vote for the blacks for office. And he was elected.

So those types of examples speak pretty well that there has been no effort to keep blacks from being elected to office. As far as the so-called gerrymandering-and of course every apportionment case in the legislature has been going on now for some time, and Mr. Parker reargued his case here this morning as he has reargued it through the three-judge panel, and the Supreme Court of the United States said that the Court had jurisdiction of that letter and that it was not submissible under section 5. So we are not talking about a matter that should be submitted.

The courts have this redistricting plan under consideration. They have a directive from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, so do not blame the people of Mississippi for what the courts have ordered in that regard.

Senator TUNNEY. This is the redistricting plan that the State legislature has approved?

Mr. SUMMER. No.

Senator TUNNEY. That the board of supervisors has approved. I see on the map, it is apparently the boot that Mr. Parker talked about, where there is a majority of black registered votes. And I see that is divided up pretty well into four districts, like the spokes of a wheel.

I would assume that if the red area is the predominantly black area, the white areas are predominantly white voting areas. As a casual observer, knowing none of the facts, just looking at that map, it would look as though the desire was to split up that black vote into the four supervisorial districts or maybe there are five.

Mr. SUMMER. Five.

Senator TUNNEY. Into the five supervisorial districts, which is a well-known gerrymandering scheme. It has been practiced with success both in the North and in the West as well, but it certainly looks as though that is the case here. The Congress does have to evaluate the pattern of gerrymandering in the covered States as a prerequisite to passing judgment as to whether or not we should extend the Voting Rights Act in sections 4 and 5. I realize that this particular reapportionment is in the courts. We are looking at it for the purpose of whether we should extend the act to cover Mississippi and the other States as well.

Mr. SUMMER. Then, Mr. Chairman, I think you would have to look at it from an unconstitutional standpoint; that somewhere in the Constitution, it says, and it does not say as I read, that there is a requirement that reverse gerrymandering be installed to assure the election of blacks to office. I do not think that the Constitution ever required that.

Senator TUNNEY. No, I do not think the Constitution requires that. In fact, I think you are correct in stating that the Constitution very clearly would prohibit the election of people to public offices based upon their race, religion, or creed. That is a type of reverse discrimination which is as unconstitutional as preventing a person from getting registered or voting because he is black, brown, or any other color.

The problem is whether there is a pattern of discrimination, gerrymandering being one of those patterns, which denies to a race, religion, or creed an opportunity to have its voting strength count at the ballot box. Your statistics show clearly that the black voters in Mississippi are capable of choosing between candidates. They are not going to vote for a black person just because he is black. But, on the other hand, I cannot help but believe that in Mississippi, with 35 percent black population, you would not have more than one qualified black to sit in the State Legislature of 174 people. Those of us in politics know that there is such a thing as an ethnic vote. It is likely that most people of Irish-American extraction will vote for me if I am running as an Irish candidate. That has been the pattern in the past. The same thing is true with Italian-Americans, and the same thing is true with black Americans, particularly in a section of the country where there has been discrimination in the past, and where blacks do not feel that they have had an adquate opportunity to participate, not only in the political structure, but also where there has been economic discrimination. We had testimony yesterday, generally, that in the South, and in some of the covered districts-Mississippi as well as Louisiana and South Carolina-that there was a fear on the part of black voters that there was going to be economic discrimination against them if they voted. I assume that you feel that economic discrimination does not exist.

Mr. SUMMER. Mr. Chairman, let me respond in this section, and that is the reason that I say this is 1975, and not 1965. I would not necessarily disagree with that premise, if we were talking about the situation as existed in 1965. But I violently disagree with it as it does exist in 1975; because the State of Mississippi has long since, as you must remember, sir, that we did have a rural system in our State. Our population was almost 50/50 for a long period of time. We had a dual system that we were to operate under by virtue of the Supreme Court decision for a long, long period of time-some people say 100 years. I think one of the answers to your question lies in the fact that during that period of time, even though there was discrimination, perhaps in the areas that we are discussing here today, that they did develop a completely different feeling between blacks and whites in Mississippi, and perhaps some of the other Southern States, that does not exist in States outside of the South, which is awfully difficult to understandthat we do not fear each other, that we do not have the riots and problems that exist in some other areas. And when this came about by the Supreme Court decisions, the integration of our schools, for instance, many people thought we were going to self-destruct, and could not do it in Mississippi. We did it, we did it peacefully, and we did not self-destruct; and we have the most integrated school system in the United States today. But never once have we ever been given credit for having done that, and doing it on a peaceful basis. It is quite different from one of our Northeastern States, which is having its