be judged solely on constitutional grounds requiring invidious purpose. Thus, as long as the new
law was ameliorative, it would be upheld even if it still did not afford blacks within the
jurisdiction voting power equivalent to their proportion in the population. In United Jewish
Organizations of Williamsburg v. Carey.223 the Court held that the state could use racial criteria
in districting in order to assure that its reapportionment plan complied with §5. The language of
§5 was read disjunctively, so changes that had the effect of diluting black voting power were not
permitted even if a court found there was no invidious purpose.224

C.        §2 Challenges to Election Laws

Maryland was not a jurisdiction covered by §5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The
section which applied to this state was the general prohibition of §2 against the use of any
procedure to deny or abridge the vote on account of race. Instead of an "effects" test, §2 required
persons challenging voting laws to demonstrate that they were adopted or maintained with a
racially discriminatory "purpose."225 Although a demonstration of an invidious purpose is more
difficult to show than the existence of a racially disproportionate effect, there have been several
challenges in this state to voting laws based on §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as well as the
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments.

In 1971 Reverend Vernon Dobson and others filed suit to obtain a declaratory judgment
that new councilmanic districts in Baltimore were racially gerrymandered to dilute the
effectiveness of black votes. The new plan had created a district which was 95% black and the
result of this concentration was to preserve white majorities in other districts. The court
dismissed the action on the grounds that it had been filed too late to grant relief for the pending
election and that the results of the pending election might change the parties and the issues
involved in the suit.226

The next major challenge to apportionment was filed after the statewide reapportionment
following the 1980 census. A large number of petitioners raised a wide variety of challenges to
the new plan. The petitions were referred to a master, and the master's report was approved per
curiam by the Maryland Court of Appeals in time for the 1982 elections. The Chief Judge of the
Court of Appeals filed the opinion in the case two years later. Most of the challenges to the plan
did not relate to race, but the Court did find that those claims that were made of invidious
discrimination were not supported by the evidence.227

D.        The 1982 Amendments to the Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 had stated that no voting qualification or practice shall be
imposed "to deny or abridge" the right of any citizen to vote on account of race. The Court held
in Mobile v. Bolden that §2 of the statute was not violated unless there was an invidious
intention. This created a sharp distinction between jurisdictions subject to §5 whose voting laws
were reviewed under an "effects" test and jurisdictions subject only to §2. The President initially
proposed to abolish this contrast by not renewing §5. Civil rights groups quickly responded that

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