## Facts

- African-American voters brought a class action under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act challenging Chicago Heights’ at-large method of electing its city council as diluting minority voting strength.
- The district court found a § 2 violation and moved to a remedial phase to restructure the election method.
- Illinois municipal law permitted alternative election structures, including single-member districts and cumulative voting for certain offices.
- The City proposed a single-member district plan; the district court rejected it.
- The district court adopted its own municipality-wide, hybrid cumulative-voting system in which seven council members would be elected at large with cumulative voting.
- The remedial order did not definitively establish that the specific hybrid cumulative-voting scheme complied with the governing Illinois statutory framework.
- Local voters were not given an opportunity to choose or approve the particular cumulative-voting system imposed by the court.
- The district court also awarded substantial attorneys’ fees and expenses to plaintiffs’ counsel after years of litigation.
- The City and other defendants appealed the remedial order and fee awards; plaintiffs cross-appealed aspects of the fee rulings.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its remedial discretion by imposing a court-designed, citywide cumulative-voting scheme to cure a proven § 2 violation without adequately addressing compatibility with Illinois election law and local decision-making mechanisms.
2. Whether the district court’s attorneys’ fee and expense awards to plaintiffs’ counsel were reasonable in light of the litigation results and the status of the remedy on appeal.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reversed the district court’s remedial order adopting the hybrid cumulative-voting plan and remanded for further remedial proceedings.
- The court held the district court acted too quickly in imposing a complex electoral remedy without sufficient grounding in state-law authorization and related local processes.
- The Seventh Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the attorneys’ fee and expense awards, and remanded for recalculation consistent with its disposition and reasoning.

## Legal Principles

- Federal courts have broad equitable authority to remedy a proven § 2 Voting Rights Act violation, but remedial discretion is constrained by the need for a legally grounded and properly supported remedy.
- A voting remedy that restructures local electoral systems must be evaluated for compatibility with applicable state-law frameworks governing permissible election methods.
- Where state law provides mechanisms for local choice among election structures, remedial orders should account for local political and democratic processes rather than imposing an unsupported, court-invented system.
- Attorneys’ fees to prevailing parties in Voting Rights Act litigation must reflect reasonable compensation tied to results obtained; appellate modification of the remedy may require recalibration of fee and cost components.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit set aside a district court-imposed cumulative-voting remedy for a § 2 violation because the remedial process insufficiently addressed state-law authorization and local decision-making, and it required partial reconsideration of attorneys’ fees to align the awards with the litigation outcomes after remand.


Harper v. City of Chicago Heights, 223 F.3d 593 (7th Cir. 2000)