Full opinion text
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Plaintiff, James R. King (“King”), claims that the configuration of the Illinois Fourth Congressional District violates the Fourteenth Amendment. To address this claim, this court must review the history of the current district map and resolve the unusual procedural issues that accompany King’s lawsuit. Because the Illinois General Assembly failed to reapportion Illinois’ legislative districts following the issuance of the 1990 census report, that task fell to an earlier panel of this court by default. See Hastert v. State Bd. of Elections, 777 F.Supp. 634, 641 (N.D.Ill.1991) (hereinafter “Hastert”). On November 6,. 1991, the Hastert court issued an order reapportioning Illinois’ twenty (20) congressional seats. Through this order, the Hastert court created a “majority-minority” Hispanic congressional district for the first time in Illinois history. The situs of this Hispanic majority district is Illinois’ Fourth Congressional District, which is located in Cook County and the City of Chicago. Since November 6, 1991, the United States Supreme Court has issued two course-altering opinions concerning congressional reapportionment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 113 S.Ct. 2816, 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993); Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 115 S.Ct. 2475, 132 L.Ed.2d 762 (1995). In addition, two congressional elections have been held; in both elections, the electorate of the Fourth Congressional District sent a Hispanic representative to Congress. In February 1995, King, a resident of the Fourth Congressional District, filed the instant lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Hispanic majority distinct adopted in Hastert. King contends that the borders of the Fourth Congressional District were drawn predominately on the basis of race and without a compelling state interest to justify this racially-based classification. He also opposes the district’s current configuration on moral grounds. King thus argues that the configuration of the Fourth Congressional District approved in Hastert violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. King’s lawsuit compels this court to again enter the thicket of congressional redistricting. See Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 641 (citation omitted). More specifically, this court must determine whether the court-ordered Hispanic majority district adopted in Hastert passes constitutional muster under the Supreme Court’s host recent equal protection jurisprudence. I. Relevant Procedural History Following the filing of King’s lawsuit, this court permitted Congressman Bobby Rush (Dem.-IL, 1st Dist.), Timuel Black, A1 Johnson, Elvira Carrizales, Neomi Hernandez, the Chicago Urban League, and the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to intervene as defendants under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 24(a) and (b). In addition, the court permitted the Democratic National Committee to participate amicus curiae. On August 15, 1995, King filed a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to enjoin the Illinois Congressional primary and general elections presently scheduled for March 19,1996, and November 5,1996, respectively. King predicated his request for a preliminary injunction on the alleged constitutional deprivation articulated in his complaint; namely, that the Hastert court’s configuration of the Fourth Congressional District on the basis of race violated his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to participate in a “color-blind election process.” Pursuant to Rule 65(a)(2), this court consolidated the hearing on King’s preliminary injunction motion with the three day trial conducted December 13-15, 1995, on the merits of King’s complaint. See Fed. R.Civ.P. 65(a)(2). Since many of the arguments advanced at trial by King either directly or indirectly challenged or implicated factual findings and legal conclusions made by the Hastert court, this court first had to resolve several procedural issues concerning the relationship between this litigation and the Hastert litigation. Two issues predominated: first, whether and to what extent the parties are bound by the Hastert court’s findings of fact; and second, the standard by which this court would review the Hastert court’s conclusions of law. A. Standards Governing the Hastert court’s Findings of Fact 1. Rule 60(b) Defendant State Board of Elections (“SBOE”) and defendant-intervenor DOJ argued that King’s lawsuit should be considered an attempt to modify or vacate the Hastert court’s reapportionment order since it essentially attacked the factual findings and legal conclusions of the Hastert opinion. Based upon this characterization, the SBOE and DOJ maintained that King’s lawsuit should have been transferred to the Hastert panel pursuant to Local General Rule .2.21 D(8). If the case had been transferred, King would have had to petition the Hastert court to reopen those proceedings and permit him to intervene. The Hastert court, in turn, would have considered King’s challenges to its November 1991 reapportionment order under Rule 60(b)(5) or (b)(6). Proceeding under Rule 60(b) would have been a daunting task, since “relief from a judgment under Rule 60(b) is an extraordinary remedy reserved for the exceptional case.” See Camp v. Gregory, 67 F.3d 1286, 1290 (7th Cir.1995). This court, which includes two of the three judges who presided over the Hastert case, declined to transfer King’s case as suggested by the SBOE and DOJ for three reasons. First, the doctrine of the law of the case mandated this court’s rejection of the SBOE and DOJ argument. The law of the case doctrine typically provides that “when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same ease.” Donohoe v. Consolidated Operating & Prod. Corp., 30 F.3d 907, 910 (7th Cir.1994) (quoting Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618, 103 S.Ct. 1382, 1391, 75 L.Ed.2d 318 (1983)). The doctrine applies not only to the prior decisions of the same court, but also to prior decisions of a coordinate court in the same case. Id. (citing Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp., 486 U.S. 800, 815-18, 108 S.Ct. 2166, 2177-79, 100 L.Ed.2d 811 (1988)). In this context, the doctrine of the law of the ease functions like the doctrine governing reconsideration; that is, “a court will ordinarily not reconsider its own decision made at an earlier stage of the trial or on a prior appeal, absent clear and convincing reasons to reexamine the prior ruling.” See Johnson v. Burken, 930 F.2d 1202,1207 (7th Cir.1991) (quoting Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 680 F.2d 527, 532 (7th Cir.1982), cert, denied 459 U.S. 1226, 103 S.Ct. 1233, 75 L.Ed.2d 467 (1983)). Thus, when a court is asked to change a prior decision in its own case or in the case of a coordinate court, the law of the case doctrine permits it to avoid reexamining the prior decision “unless powerful reasons are given for doing so.” Id. In this case, King filed a petition for the appointment of a three judge panel pursuant to 28 U.S.C. section 2284(a) shortly after filing his complaint. The SBOE agreed that a three judge panel was appropriate but argued that the three judges who presided over the Hastert litigation should be reappointed since King’s complaint sought “to modify” that court’s redistricting order. (See SBOE Resp. Mem., at ¶¶ 4-5). In accordance with 28 U.S.C. section 2284(b)(1), the petition was transferred to the Honorable Richard A. Posner, Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, for decision. Judge Posner appointed the present panel, and thereby rejected the SBOE’s request for assignment of the case to the Hastert court. Second, neither the SBOE nor DOJ established that Local Rule 2.21 D(8) applied to the unique circumstances of King’s complaint. The purpose of Local Rule 2.21 D(8) appears to be three-fold: to prevent forum or judge shopping; to ensure continuity of decisions; and to promote judicial economy. Given these purposes, it is axiomatic that when a court enters a judgment resolving a dispute among certain parties, the same court must preside over any secondary action brought by one of the parties to enforce, modify or vacate that judgment. King, however, does not fall within the parameters of this axiom. He was neither a party to nor in privity with any party to the Hastert proceeding, and thus lacked standing to petition the Hastert court under Rule 60(b) for an order vacating or modifying its judgment order. See Fed.R.Civ.P.R. 60(b); National Acceptance Co. of Am., Inc. v. Frigidmeats, Inc., 627 F.2d 764, 766 (7th Cir.1980) (“[i]t is well settled that ... ‘one who was npt a party lacks standing to make a 60(b) motion’ ”) (quoting 11 Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2865, at 225-26 (1973)). In addition, there is no evidence that he engaged in any impermissible judge shopping, which would have been a particularly fruitless endeavor since Judge Posner appointed two of the three Hastert judges to preside over this ease. Similarly, the interests of judicial economy were not compelling as King alleged that both the governing law and the relevant facts had changed since the Hastert court issued its reapportionment order. Thus, the law of the case doctrine notwithstanding, the DOJ and SBOE failed to establish that King’s complaint was eligible for reassignment under Local Rule 2.21 D(8). Finally, the Hastert court did not retain jurisdiction to hear and decide future constitutional challenges to its reapportionment order. The DOJ argued that the Hastert court implicitly retained jurisdiction to enforce or modify its judgment in light of changed circumstances, but the authority it cited concerned the modification of injunctive relief. See System Fed’n No. 91, By. Emp. Dept. AFL-CIO v. Wright, 364 U.S. 642, 647-48, 81 S.Ct. 368, 371, 5 L.Ed.2d 349 (1961) (district court abused its discretion in refusing to modify consent decree that enjoined a number of specific discriminatory acts); United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 114, 52 S.Ct. 460, 462, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932) (court in equity has power to modify an injunction to adapt to changed conditions, even where the injunction was entered by consent decree). This authority is inapposite as the Hastert court issued its reapportionment order pursuant to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. To that end, the Hastert court ordered that the court-ordered redistricting plan “shall govern the nomination and election of members of the House of Representatives from the State of Illinois, effective with respect to the 1992 primary and continuing until Illinois congressional districts are reapportioned in accordance with law.” Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 662. The Hastert court thus not only declined to retain jurisdiction to consider subsequent non-party challenges to its reap- portionment order but, equally important, it conditionally limited the duration of its order. See Jackson v. DeSoto Parish Sch. Bd., 585 F.2d 726, 730 n. 1 (5th Cir.1978) (“[w]e note ... that in reapportionment, unlike school desegregation and institutional reform eases, the court’s jurisdiction is not continuing, and the plan, once adopted and acted upon [i.e., an election is held], does not require further judicial supervision”). Accordingly, this court did not transfer King’s complaint to the Hastert court for further proceedings under Rule 60(b). 2. Conditional Judicial Notice Although King was not a party to the Hastert litigation and thus could not be bound by that court’s findings of fact or judgment under the doctrines of collateral estoppel or res judicata, his complaint both directly and indirectly challenged the Hastert court’s findings of fact and judgment. In recognition of the unique nature of King’s claim and to expedite the proceedings at trial, this court took judicial notice of the Hastert court’s findings of fact under Federal Rule of Evidence 201. See, e.g., Philips Medical Sys. Int’l, B.V. v. Bruetman, 982 F.2d 211, 215 n. 2 (7th Cir.1992) (federal courts may take judicial notice of proceedings, including evidence, in other courts both within and outside of the federal judicial system “if the proceedings have a direct relation to matters at issue”); Green v. Warden, U.S. Penitentiary, 699 F.2d 364, 369 (7th Cir.), cert, denied 461 U.S. 960, 103 S.Ct. 2436, 77 L.Ed.2d 1321 (1983) (same). More specifically, this court informed the parties that it would admit into evidence the Hastert court’s finding of facts and would adopt those findings as conclusive unless King showed by law or otherwise that the Hastert court either erred in making specific findings of fact or that the circumstances had changed since November 1991 such that specific findings of fact were no longer valid and needed to be modified. See Tr., at 36, 652. This court conditionally admitted the Hastert court’s findings of fact through judicial notice for two reasons. First, had King been a party or in privity with a party to the Hastert action, his constitutional challenge of the Hastert court’s order and findings of fact would have proceeded under Rule 60(b). Under Rule 60(b), the Hastert court’s findings of fact made pursuant to Rule 52(a) would have been law of the case. See Bennett v. Arrington, 806 F.Supp. 926, 927 n. 2 (N.D.Ala.1992), ajfd in part, rev’d in part on other grounds 20 F.3d 1525 (11th Cir.1994). As such, the Hastert court would not have reexamined its factual findings to decide a Rule 60(b) motion unless powerful reasons existed for doing so—such as the occurrence of manifest error or a controlling or significant change in the factual circumstances. Since King’s lawsuit is at its very core a challenge to the Hastert court’s order, this court concluded that King’s lack of standing under Rule 60(b) should not determine the standard of review applicable to the Hastert court’s findings of fact. The court therefore adopted the standards that would have applied had King sought .to modify the Hastert order under Rule 60(b). The court also conditionally admitted the Hastert court’s findings of fact to promote important interests in finality and judicial economy. To demonstrate that the Hastert court erred in making a specific finding of fact, King has to establish that the court committed clear error. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a). A finding of fact is “ ‘clearly erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 573, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) (citation omitted); United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 542, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948); United States v. Price, 54 F.3d 342, 348 (7th Cir.1995). Under this standard, the court must strongly defer to the trier of fact’s findings. In re Love, 957 F.2d 1350, 1354 (7th Cir.1992). As such, “if the trial court’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, a reviewing court may not reverse even if convinced that it would have weighted the evidence differently as a trier of fact.” Id. “Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the fact-finder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Anderson, 470 U.S. at 574, 105 S.Ct. at 1511. Accordingly, unless clear error is established, this court will defer to the Hastert court’s findings of fact. See Johnson v. Mortham, 915 F.Supp. 1529 (N.D.Fla. 1995). Alternatively, King must establish by a preponderance of evidence that specific factual circumstances have changed. See Jackson v. DeSoto Parish Sch. Bd., 585 F.2d 726, 730 (5th Cir.1978). Once such evidence has been proffered, this court will analyze the particular finding of fact de novo. In addition to taking judicial notice of the Hastert court’s findings of fact, this court took judicial notice of the evidence presented to the Hastert court. (Tr. at 638). The court admitted this evidence for the limited purpose of establishing the evidentiary record upon which the Hastert court relied to make its decision. (Id.). The Hastert court’s evidentiary record was not admitted for any other purpose, except where one of the parties individually or jointly moved for the admission of a particular portion of that record. B. Standard of Review of the Hastert court’s Conclusions of Law An appellate court traditionally reviews a district court’s conclusions of law due novo. See Apostol v. Landau, 957 F.2d 339, 341 (7th Cir.1992). Under this standard, the appellate court is not bound by the district court’s legal conclusions but instead examines the law “anew.” Lulich v. Sherwin-Williams Co., 992 F.2d 719, 721 (7th Cir.1993); Black’s Law Diet. 392 (5th ed.1979). Although this court is not an appellate court, the nature of King’s complaint requires it to review the Hastert court’s legal conclusions. Under these circumstances, this court adopted the law of the ease doctrine as the standard of review for the Hastert court’s legal conclusions. As with a motion to vacate or modify a judgment under Rule 60(b), this court will not disturb the Hastert court’s conclusions of law but for manifest or plain error. See Russell v. Delco Remy Div. of Gen. Motors, 51 F.3d 746, 749 (7th Cir.1995) (discussed supra in footnote 8). At the same time, however, this court will review de novo the Hastert court’s conclusions of law where the decisional law has arguably changed. King proffers three “powerful reasons” warranting reexamination of the Hastert court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law: first, the governing law has changed as a result of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Shaw and Miller, second, certain factual findings made by the Hastert court were clearly erroneous; and third, the facts have changed since November 1991. II. The Hastert Court’s Decision The 1990 decennial census report revealed that Illinois’ population had grown by 4,084 people, or 0.0357%, between 1980 and 1990. Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 637. Because the rate of Illinois’ population growth was proportionally smaller than that of the United States as a whole, Illinois was only entitled to twenty seats in the United States House of Representatives rather than its previous twenty-two. The Illinois constitution required the General Assembly to reapportion the state’s congressional districts to comport ■with the 1990 census results; however, it failed to do so. As a result of the General Assembly’s abdication of its constitutional responsibility, five separate lawsuits were filed seeking a common declaration; namely, Illinois’ then existing congressional districting plan was unconstitutional due to the population and demographic changes represented in the 1990 census report. Id. The Republican Party members of the 1990 Illinois congressional delegation (the “Hastert” plaintiffs) filed the first lawsuit on June 27,1991. Shortly thereafter, a group of Hispanic and African-American resident-voters (the “Nieves” plaintiffs) filed the second lawsuit seeking, inter alia, the creation of a majority-minority Hispanic congressional district under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973. Next, a group of resident voters from various Illinois congressional districts, ostensibly acting on behalf of the Democratic Party members of the 1990 Illinois congressional delegation (the “Rose-brook” plaintiffs), filed the third lawsuit. Representative Cardiss Collins (D-IL; 7th Dist.) and Representative Charles Hayes (DIL; 1st Dist.) jointly filed the fourth lawsuit (the “Collins” plaintiffs). Finally, the Chicago Urban League filed the fifth lawsuit on behalf of the resident voters in the then existing majority-minority African-American congressional districts. Each group of plaintiffs submitted a proposed redistricting plan to the court for consideration. All five lawsuits were consolidated into a single proceeding for trial. The Hastert court conducted a two day trial beginning on October 7, 1991. Due to time constraints imposed by the 1992 election filing deadlines, the court streamlined the proceedings “in a manner that would still enable the parties to present a complete record on the serious constitutional matters at issue.” Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 639. To that end, the court “directed the parties to submit their evidence in the form of affidavits and depositions, supplemented by any maps and statistical data____” Id. at 639-40. The court limited the parties to a single proposed plan and map at trial, and entertained argument mainly through post-trial briefs. Id. at 640. As a result of these streamlined proceedings, the parties resolved numerous issues through negotiation, concession, and stipulation. In so doing, the parties not only effectively supplanted the Hastert court’s fact finding role in many instances but also narrowed the number of substantive legal issues the court needed to decide. The court explained: The parties worked diligently during discovery and the two-day trial to resolve numerous areas of significant disagreement in their competing plans. The pretrial proceedings were marked by a succession of amendments to the principal redistrieting proposals, with each of the new amended plans incrementally eliminating a complex area of potential conflict. Id. at 640. The magnitude of complex issues resolved by stipulation among the parties was unprecedented. According to the Hastert court, not only did all of the parties agree throughout the proceedings that “the population and demographic changes within the City of Chicago from 1980 to 1990 mandated the creation of an Hispanic majority district,” but they also reached an agreement prior to trial as to “the configuration of the proposed Hispanic majority district.” Id. These pre-trial agreements between the parties had significant consequences on the conduct and outcome of the trial. By reaching an agreement on the configuration of a proposed Hispanic district, the parties greatly simplified a perplexing issue. Indeed, an agreement on this issue may be the crucial factor in facilitating the creation of an Hispanic district. The agreement on the proposed Hispanic district removed the Hispanic contingent among the Nieves plaintiffs as active participants at trial. Id. (emphasis added). The Hastert court summarized the effect of the streamlined proceedings as follows: As a consequence of the admirable efforts of counsel to come to an agreement on many issues, the trial focused primarily on the redistrieting proposals of the Hastert and Rosebrook plaintiffs. We are left primarily with the task of determining which of the two proposed plans best meets the goals and criteria, both constitutional and non-constitutional, enumerated by the Supreme Court. Id. In short, the parties’ pre-trial negotiations and agreements significantly narrowed the court’s role. Essentially two tasks (relevant to this lawsuit) remained for the Hastert court: first, to analyze the revised Hastert and Rosebrook redistrieting plans to determine which plan better satisfied constitutional standards; and second, to determine whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act required the creation of an Hispanic majority-minority district. A. The Court’s Constitutional Analysis The proposed Hastert and Rosebrook redistricting plans were substantially similar in purpose, design and configuration but differed in the final allocation of the electorate within the twenty congressional districts. The Hastert court therefore set forth to determine which proposed plan better satisfied the governing constitutional requirements of population equality, fairness to minority voting rights (ie., vote dilution), and political fairness. The court first assessed the two proposed plans under the one person, one vote theory of representation articulated in Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 526,11 L.Ed.2d 481 (1964). The court ultimately concluded that the proposed Hastert plan, with a total deviation of 0.00017% from the ideal congressional district population of 571,530, better advanced the one person, one vote principle than the proposed Rosebrook plan, which had a total deviation of 0.00297%. Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 644. The court next evaluated the proposed plans for their fairness to the voting rights of racial and language minorities. Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 645. This inquiry required the court to assess whether either of the proposed redistrieting plans had the discriminatory effect of diluting the power of minority votes. The court found that neither proposal diluted minority voting power and ultimately concluded that the proposed Hastert plan better satisfied this constitutional criterion. Finally, the court assessed the proposed plans for political fairness, meaning whether one or both of the proposed plans had the effect of discriminating against an identifiable political group. Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 655, 656. Both plans sought to address the then existing discrepancy between Democratic and Republican congressional representation. The Rosebrook plaintiffs argued, however, that the Hastert plan would result in a politically unfair redistribution of congressional seats. Id. at 656, 658. After an extensive analysis, the court rejected this contention, concluding that “[t]he data suggests that the Hastert plan is likely to yield a distribution of seats across party lines that mirrors the statewide partisan makeup of the voting citizenry----” Id. at 659. It further concluded that the Hastert plan was politically more fair. Id. B. The Court’s Section 2 Voting Rights Act Analysis As previously established, all of the parties initially agreed that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act “mandated” the creation of an Hispanic majority district and further agreed to the general configuration of such a district. As a result, the proposed configurations of the Hispanic district in the Hastert and Rosebrook plans were virtually identical: the district would link the two densely populated Hispanic communities on Chicago’s near northwest and near southwest sides though a narrowly drawn, C-shaped connector that wound around the western edge of the Seventh Congressional District. The Hastert court concluded that the proposed Hispanic district had an “extraordinary appearance” that was “not unlike a Rorschach blot turned on its side.” Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 648 n. 24. Even though all of the parties agreed to this extraordinary configuration, the court declined to “accept this conclusion without scrutiny.” Id. at 648. It therefore undertook to determine whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act required the creation of an Hispanic majority district. A minority group seeking the creation of a majority-minority district under Section 2 must “make a threshold showing that it is: (1) sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a properly . drawn district; (2) politically cohesive; and (3) that racial bloc voting typically frustrates the election of the minority group’s preferred candidate.” Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 649 (citing Gingles, 478 U.S. at 50-51, 106 S.Ct. at 2766). The court determined that the Chicago/Cook County Hispanic community satisfied each of these threshold requirements. The court made the following findings of fact to support its conclusion that the Chicago/Cook County Hispanic community was “sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a single district majority.” Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 649. First, the 1990 census reported the Hispanic population in Chicago at 545,852, a 29.38% increase over the 1980 total. Id. Second, “[mjost of the Chicago/Cook County Hispanic population is clustered in two dense enclaves, one on Chicago’s near northwest side and one on the near southwest side.” Id. Third, the two enclaves are less than one mile apart at their closest point. Id. Fourth, this separation resulted from exogenous physical and institutional barriers—specifically, the east-west Eisenhower Expressway, the University of IUinois-Chicago Circle campus, and various major medical institutions—and thus did not indicate the existence of two distinct communities. Id. & n. 25. To support its conclusion that the Chicago/Cook County Hispanic community was politically cohesive, the court adopted the findings of cohesiveness made by two federal courts in the early 1980s in cases where the Hispanic community challenged discriminatory redistrieting practices at the state and local levels. Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 650 (iciting Ketehum v. Byrne, 740 F.2d 1398 (7th Cir.1984), cert, denied 471 U.S. 1135, 105 S.Ct. 2673, 86 L.Ed.2d 692 (1985) (Chicago aldermanic redistricting plan); Rybicki v. State Bd. of Elections, 574 F.Supp. 1082 (N.D.Ill.1982) (three judge panel) (state legislative redistricting plan), supplemented 574 F.Supp. 1147 (N.D.Ill.), supplemented 574 F.Supp. 1161 (N.D.Ill.1983)). The court further found that the voting bloc patterns of the Hispanic community also demonstrated its political cohesiveness. Id. More specifically, the court found that “[sjingle and bi-variate regression analysis of voting patterns in Chicago precincts demonstrate significant ethnic bloc voting patterns.” Id. Finally, the court found that the third threshold factor was fulfilled because the paucity of Hispanic officials in city and state-wide elected political offices compelled “the finding that ethnic bloc voting patterns have thwarted the political interests of the Hispanic community.” Id. Having found the three threshold requirements satisfied, the court then considered the merits of the claimed need for an Hispanic majority-minority district under “the totality of the circumstances test.” Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 649. The relevant factors generally considered under the totality of the circumstances test include a history of official discrimination relating to minority political participation; the extent of racially polarized voting practices; the extent to which certain voting practices and procedures with discriminatory effects have been employed in the past; the exclusion of the minority group from the candidate slating process; the extent to which the minority group bears the effects of past discrimination in education, employment and health services which hinder their ability to effectively participate in the political process; the use of racial appeals in political campaigns; the extent to which minorities have been elected to office; and the lack of responsiveness by elected officials to particular minority needs. Id. (citations omitted). However, rather than making its own findings of fact with respect to these factors, the court adopted the Seventh Circuit’s findings concerning the Chicago Hispanic community set forth in Ketehum v. Byrne, the Section 2 Voting Rights Act challenge of the 1982 Chicago aldermanic redistricting plan. Id. Based on a “judicially recognized history of discrimination, both past and present, against the Chicago Hispanic community and its attendant impact on effective political participation and representation,” the Hastert court concluded that an Hispanic majority district was warranted under Gingles. Id. The court further concluded that the “odd configuration” of the majority-minority Hispanic Fourth Congressional District was necessary to accommodate the creation of the Hispanic and the three African-American majority-minority districts “dictated under the Voting Rights Act.” Id. The court therefore concluded that “the configuration has been drafted to satisfy constitutional and statutory goals and principles.” Id. (emphasis in original). III. King’s Constitutional Challenge of the Hastert Court’s Decision As previously established, King contends that the boundaries of the majority Hispanic Fourth Congressional District were drawn on the basis of race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The idea that a legislative redistricting plan that segregated the electorate on the basis of race might violate the Equal Protection Clause first surfaced in the 1960s. See Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 349, 81 S.Ct. 125,131, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960) (Whittaker, J., concurring) (plan to redefine city’s borders to place Negro voters outside of city limits was an unlawful segregation of citizens on basis of race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause); Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U.S. 52, 56, 84 S.Ct. 603, 605,11 L.Ed.2d 512 (1964) (congressional redistricting plan that allegedly segregated eligible voters by race and place of origin was challenged as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause). The Supreme Court, however, did not formally recognize an Equal Protection Clause challenge to redistricting plans until its 1993 decision in Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 113 S.Ct. 2816, 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993), where it recognized a claim challenging the constitutionality of a bizarrely drawn but facially race-neutral redistricting plan. Two years later in Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 900, 115 S.Ct. 2475, 132 L.Ed.2d 762 (1995), the Supreme Court further defined the contours of this Equal Protection Clause claim. Since Shaw and Miller were both decided after Hastert, the Hastert court did not have occasion to consider whether the extraordinary configuration of the Fourth Congressional District may have violated the Equal Protection Clause. Accordingly, the Hastert court’s conclusion that the district’s extraordinary configuration was necessary to “satisfy constitutional principles” is rendered circumspect by the change in governing law and is therefore subject to de novo review. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[n]o state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U.S. Const., Amdt. H, § 1. The clause’s “central mandate is race neutrality in governmental decisionmaking.” Miller, 515 U.S. at 904, 115 S.Ct. at 2482. The prohibitions of the Equal Protection Clause extend not only to laws that explicitly distinguish between individuals on the basis of race but also to laws that appear racially neutral but are “unexplainable on grounds other than race.” Shaw, 509 U.S. at 643,113 S.Ct. at 2824, 2825 (quoting Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266, 97 S.Ct. 555, 564, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977)); accord Miller, 515 U.S. at 905-06,115 S.Ct. at 2483. Although application of the Equal Protection Clause’s mandate is often difficult, “the basic principle is straightforward: ‘Racial and ethnic distinctions of any sort are inherently suspect and thus call for the most exacting judicial examination.’ ” Miller, 515 U.S. at 904,115 S.Ct. at 2482 (quoting Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 291, 98 S.Ct. 2733, 2748, 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978)). Laws that classify citizens on the basis of race cannot be upheld unless they are narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest. Id. (citations omitted); Shaw, 509 U.S. at 643-45, 113 S.Ct. at 2825. In Shaw, the Supreme Court held that “a plaintiff challenging a reapportionment statute under the Equal Protection Clause may state a claim by alleging that the legislation, though race-neutral on its face, rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to separate voters into different districts on the basis of race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification.” 509 U.S. at 649, 113 S.Ct. at 2828. The appearance of the reapportioned district is therefore an important factor in ascertaining whether the electorate was impermissibly segregated on the basis of race. Id. at 647, 113 S.Ct. at 2827 (“appearances do matter” in redistricting). The Hastert court readily observed that the majority Hispanic Fourth Congressional District was bizarrely configured and “resembled a Rorschach blot turned on its side.” 777 F.Supp. at 648 n. 24. Although the Hastert court is presumed to have acted constitutionally in issuing its reapportionment order, see United States v. Paradise, 480 U.S. 149, 183, 107 S.Ct. 1053, 1073, 94 L.Ed.2d 203 (1987); see also Miller, 515 U.S. at 915-17, 115 S.Ct. at 2488 (until a' claimant makes a showing sufficient to support an allegation of race-based districting, the court must presume that the legislature acted in good faith), the presumption is necessarily limited by the scope of the court’s constitutional analysis. Since the Hastert court did not analyze whether the oddly drawn Fourth Congressional District met the requirements of the Equal Protection Clause, a presumption of constitutionality does not arise and no deference is accorded to' the Hastert court on this issue. There is no dispute that the Hastert court considered race and ethnicity in its attempt to further the goals of the Voting Rights Act. Hastert, 777 F.Supp. at 650-51. The question is whether in attempting to remedy a Section 2 Voting Rights Act violation, the Hastert court adopted a redistricting plan that apportioned the electorate on the basis of race and ethnicity in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Accordingly, the extraordinarily configured Fourth Congressional District must be subjected to an Equal Protection Clause analysis to determine its constitutionality. A. Standards for Equal Protection Clause Analysis of Redistricting Plan “The essence of [the] Equal Protection Clause claim recognized in Shaw is that the State has used race as a basis for separating voters into districts.” Miller, 515 U.S. at 911, 115 S.Ct. at 2485. When the State uses race in this manner, it has engaged in racial gerrymandering (i.e., “the deliberate and arbitrary distortion of district boundaries ... for racial purposes”). See Shaw, 509 U.S. at 640, 113 S.Ct. at 2823 (citing Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109,164, 106 S.Ct. 2797, 2826, 92 L.Ed.2d 85 (1986) (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part)). To determine whether a redistricting plan has been racially gerrymandered, the court must focus on the role that race played in the drawing of the district’s borders. The court, however, does not make this assessment in a vacuum. 1. Determining the Role of Race in the Redistricting Plan The court’s analysis begins by recognizing two fundamental principles of redistricting. First, race is one of many demographic factors inherently considered in the redistricting process. As the Supreme Court observed in Shaw, redistricting differs from other kinds of state decisionmaking in that the legislature always is aware of race when it draws district lines, just as it is aware of age, economic status, religious and political persuasion, and a variety of other demographic factors. 509 U.S. at 646, 113 S.Ct. at 2826; Miller, 515 U.S. at 913-15, 115 S.Ct. at 2487. Second, legislatures also generally consider “traditional districting principles”—compactness, contiguity, and respect for both political subdivisions and communities of shared interests—in deciding how to reapportion district boundaries. The court’s task is to isolate the role that race played in redistricting vis-a-vis the traditional race-neutral districting principles and other non-racial demographic factors. The court’s undertaking is difficult in and of itself; it is only made harder by the complex interplay of forces that enter a legislature’s redistricting calculus. Miller, 515 U.S. at 915-16, 115 S.Ct. at 2488. In the end, however, only two conclusions are possible: first, race was the predominate consideration that guided the creation of the district; or second, race was but one of many factors of equal or greater weight that guided the creation of the district. If the court determines that race played the predominate role in drawing the district’s boundaries, then the redistricting plan was racially gerrymandered. See Miller, 515 U.S. at 915-21, 115 S.Ct. at 2488-90; Shaw, 509 U.S. at 641-50, 113 S.Ct. at 2824-28. Race plays the predominate role when the legislature has subordinated all other considerations, including the race-neutral traditional districting principles (i.e., compactness, contiguity, and respect for both political subdivisions and communities of shared interests), to racial considerations in determining the district’s configuration. Id. On the other hand, if the court determines that race was merely one factor among many other race-neutral factors accorded equal or greater significance by the legislature in drawing the district’s boundaries, then race was not the predominate factor and the redistricting plan is not subject to strict scrutiny. See Miller, 515 U.S. at 916, 115 S.Ct. at 2488 (“where these [traditional districting principles] or other race-neutral considerations are the basis for redistricting legislation, and are not subordinated to race, a state can ‘defeat a claim that a district has been gerrymandered on racial lines’ ”) (quoting Shaw, 509 U.S. at 647,113 S.Ct. at 2827); DeWitt v. Wilson, 856 F.Supp. 1409, 1415 (E.D.Cal.1994) (“we conclude that in the context or redistricting, where race is considered only in applying traditional redistricting principles along with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, that strict scrutiny is not required”), ajfd in part and appeal dismissed in part 515 U.S. 1170,115 S.Ct. 2637, 132 L.Ed.2d 876 (1995). In this manner, the traditional race-neutral districting principles function as “objective factors that may serve to defeat a claim that a district has been gerrymandered on racial lines.” Shaw, 509 U.S. at 647,113 S.Ct. at 2827. A district does not need to be bizarrely shaped to warrant constitutional review. See Miller, 515 U.S. at 913, 115 S.Ct. at 2486. According to the Supreme Court, Shape is relevant not because bizarreness is a necessary element of the constitutional wrong or a threshold requirement of proof, but because it may be persuasive circumstantial evidence that race for its own sake, and not other districting principles, was the legislature’s dominant and controlling rationale in drawing its district lines. Id. Rather, parties may rely on evidence other than bizarreness to establish race-based districting. Id. (citations omitted). The party challenging the district’s constitutionality has the burden of persuasion to prove “that race was the predominant factor motivating the legislature’s decision to place a significant number of voters within or without a particular district.” Miller, 515 U.S. at 916, 115 S.Ct. at 2488. The predominance of race in redistricting may be shown “either through circumstantial evidence of a district’s shape and demographies or more direct evidence going to the legislative purpose.” Id. In sum, a plaintiff must prove that the legislature subordinated traditional race-neutral districting principles, including but not limited to compactness, contiguity, respect for political subdivisions or communities defined by actual shared interests, to racial considerations. Id. 2. Strict Scrutiny Once a plaintiff has proven that racial considerations predominated, the court must subject the redistricting plan to strict scrutiny—the “most rigorous and exacting standard of constitutional review.” Miller, 515 U.S. at 920,115 S.Ct. at 2490. There are two prongs to this examination: first, the racial classification must be justified by a compelling governmental interest; and second, the means chosen by the State must be narrowly tailored to achieve that goal. Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267, 274, 106 S.Ct. 1842, 1847, 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986) (plurality opinion) (citations omitted). Thus, to satisfy strict scrutiny, “the State must demonstrate that its districting legislation is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling interest.” Miller, 515 U.S. at 920, 115 S.Ct. at 2490 (citing Shaw, 509 U.S. at 650-58, 113 S.Ct. at 2829-32; City of Richmond v. J.A Croson & Co., 488 U.S. 469, 494, 109 S.Ct. 706, 722, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989) (plurality opinion); Wygant, 476 U.S. at 274, 280 & n. 6, 106 S.Ct. at 1847, 1850 & n. 6 (plurality opinion); cf. Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 229-31, 115 S.Ct. 2097, 2114, 132 L.Ed.2d 158 (1995)). Accordingly, once strict scrutiny is required, the burden shifts to the State defendants to prove that the racially drawn district is justified. See Miller, 515 U.S. at 919-21, 115 S.Ct. at 2490 (citing Shaw, 509 U.S. at 650-58, 113 S.Ct. at 2829-32); Vera v. Richards, 861 F.Supp. 1304, 1336 (S.D.Tex.1994), cert, granted 515 U.S. 1172, 115 S.Ct. 2639, 132 L.Ed.2d 877 (1995); but see Shaw v. Hunt, 861 F.Supp. 408, 435-36 (E.D.N.C.1994), cert, granted 515 U.S. 1172, 115 S.Ct. 2639, 132 L.Ed.2d 878 (1995). 3. Subjecting a Court’s Redistricting Order to Strict Scrutiny The above standards notwithstanding, the defendant-intervenors argue that a court-ordered redistricting plan should not be subjected to strict scrutiny where, as in Hastert, the plan is imposed to remedy a constitutional or statutory violation. The defendant-intervenors contend in this regard that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Shaw and Miller do not apply to this case because those decisions involved constitutional challenges to legislatively created congressional redistricting plans rather than a court-ordered redistrieting plan. This distinction is without merit for three reasons. First, the Supreme Court has historically recognized that in some respects, court-ordered remedial redistricting plans must be subject to stricter review than plans drawn by state legislatures. See Upham v. Seam-on, 456 U.S. 37, 42, 102 S.Ct. 1518, 1521-22, 71 L.Ed.2d 725 (1982) (per curiam); Wise v. Lipscomb, 437 U.S. 535, 540, 98 S.Ct. 2493, 2497, 57 L.Ed.2d 411 (1978); Connor v. Finch, 431 U.S. 407, 414-15, 97 S.Ct. 1828, 1833-34, 52 L.Ed.2d 465 (1977). These courts have employed a more stringent standard to review court-ordered redistricting plans because reapportionment is a uniquely legislative task for which the court is not ideally suited. See Connor, 431 U.S. at 414-15, 97 S.Ct. at 1833-34. There, the Supreme Court explained: Legislative reapportionment is primarily a matter for legislative consideration and determination, ... for a state legislature is the institution that is by far the best situated to identify and then reconcile traditional state policies within the constitutionally mandated framework of substantial population equality. Where a legislature has failed to reconcile these conflicting state and federal goals, a federal court is left with the unwelcome obligation of performing in the legislature’s stead, while lacking the political authoritativeness that the legislature can bring to the task. In such circumstances, the court’s task is inevitably an exposed and sensitive one that must be accomplished circumspectly and in a manner ‘free from any taint of arbitrariness or discrimination. ’ Id. at 415, 97 S.Ct. at 1834 (citation omitted) (emphasis added); accord Wise, 437 U.S. at 540, 98 S.Ct. at 2497. However, the stricter standard for court-ordered reapportionment plans applies “only to remedies required by the nature and scope of the violation. ‘The remedial powers of an equity court must be adequate to the task, but they are not unlimited.’ ” Upham, 456 U.S. at 42, 102 S.Ct. at 1522 (quoting Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U.S. 124, 161, 91 S.Ct. 1858, 1878, 29 L.Ed.2d 363 (1971)). Thus, the legislative versus judicial distinction advocated by the defendant-intervenors is of no consequence where, as in Hastert, a court adopted a redistricting plan to remedy a constitutional or statutory violation. Such a court-ordered plan must be strictly scrutinized to ensure that the remedy itself is appropriate and constitutional. Second, where a State legislature has abdicated its redistrieting duty to the court system, the courts are forced to act in a pseudo-legislative capacity. If a lesser standard is applied to court-ordered redistrieting plans under these circumstances, the checks and balances inherent in our constitutional framework will be gravely injured in this discrete area. Subjecting a court-ordered plan to strict scrutiny is thus necessary to restore constitutional equipoise. In addition, applying the same standards to both court-ordered and legislatively created redistrieting plans is further warranted by the disturbing and growing trend of gross dereliction of duty by State legislatures that are all too ready to leave the political thicket of redistrieting to the federal courts. Applying a lesser standard to a court-ordered redistrieting plan would only reward such cowardice and encourage more state legislatures to forsake their duties and seek political refuge behind the court’s robes. Protecting the integrity of the court requires application of an equal standard of review where, as here, the court is forced by legislative nonfeasance to perform what is a uniquely legislative task. Third, the Supreme Court in Adamnd most recently held that all racial classifications imposed by any governmental actor— whether federal, state or local—must be analyzed by a reviewing court under strict scrutiny. 515 U.S. at 285-37, 115 S.Ct. at 2117. Justice O’Connor, writing for the Court, observed that the Court’s prior decisions through Croson had established three general propositions with respect to governmental racial classifications: First, skepticism: ‘[a]ny preference based on racial or ethnic criteria must necessarily receive a most searching examination.’ Second, consistency: ‘the standard of review under the Equal Protection Clause is not dependent on the race of those burdened or benefited by a particular classification ... i. e., all racial classifications reviewable under the Equal Protection Clause must be strictly scrutinized. And • third,- congruence: ‘[ejqual protection analysis in the Fifth Amendment is the same as that under the Fourteenth Amendment.’ ’ Adamnd, 515 U.S. at 223-24, 115 S.Ct. at 2111 (citations omitted). Justice O’Connor concluded: Taken together, these three propositions lead to the conclusion that any person, of whatever race, has the right to demand that any governmental actor subject to the Constitution justify any racial classification subjecting that person to unequal treatment under the strictest judicial scrutiny. Id. (emphasis added). Although Adamnd did not involve a challenge to a court-ordered racial classification, the scope of the Court’s conclusion must be extended to include the judicial branch. See, e.g., Shaw, 509 U.S. at 657, 113 S.Ct. at 2832 (“Racial classifications with respect to voting carry particular dangers. Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions;.... It is for these reasons that race-based districting by our state legislatures demands close judicial scrutiny.”). Accordingly, strict scrutiny may be applied to court-ordered reapportionment plans drawn predominately on the basis of race. The defendant-intervenors and Democratic National Committee, as amicus curiae, nonetheless argue that a lesser standard of review should be applied to court-ordered remedial redistrieting plans, citing DeWitt v. Wilson, 856 F.Supp. 1409 (E.D.Cal.1994). This case is both factually and legally distinguishable. In 1991, the California Supreme Court appointed a panel of Masters to develop and recommend a redistrieting plan after the governor vetoed the legislature’s reapportionment plan and legislative malaise set in. 856 F.Supp. at 1410. The Masters conducted public hearings and submitted a report and recommendation to the California Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court adopted. Id. (citing Wilson v. Eu, Í Cal.4th 707, 4 Cal.Rptr.2d 379, 823 P.2d 545 (1992)). A California registered voter subsequently challenged the court-ordered redistrieting plan, claiming that it “relied on race-conscious reapportionment and diluted white voter strength in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.” Id. The district court granted summary judgment for the State, concluding that the redistrieting plan did not fall within the parameters of Shaw v. Reno. The DeWitt court, citing with approval the California Supreme Court’s findings in Wilson v. Eu, concluded that “[n]o bizarre boundaries were created” and that “the Master’s Report sought to balance the many traditional redistrieting principles, including the requirements of the Voting Rights Act.” 856 F.Supp. at 1413. The court framed the issue as follows: This case ... involves the constitutionality of a redistrieting plan that created majority-minority districts in a manner that was consistent with traditional redistrieting principles, not based solely on race, and not involving extremely irregular boundaries. It involves the question left open by the Court in Shaw. Id. The DeWitt court concluded that the plaintiff failed to state a claim for racial gerrymandering because the Masters did not draw district lines based deliberately and solely on race, with arbitrary distortions of district boundaries. The Masters ... properly looked at race, not as the sole criteria in drawing lines but as one of the many factors to be considered. We agree with the California Supreme Court that the Masters’ Report evidences a judicious and proper balancing of the many factors appropriate to redistricting. ... Id. It further held that “in the context of redistrieting, where race is considered only in applying traditional redistrieting principles along with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, ... strict scrutiny is not required.” Id. at 1415. The Democratic National Committee reasons that since the Supreme Court summarily affirmed the decision in DeWitt on the same day that it decided Miller v. Johnson, it must have intended not to subject the court-ordered redistrieting plan to the “predominant use of race test” announced in Miller. The DNC therefore speculates that if the Supreme Court had intended to subject a court-ordered plan to the same strict scrutiny applied in Miller to a legislatively enacted redistrieting plan, the Court would have vacated the DeWitt decision and remanded it for further proceedings in light of Miller. Such a speculative inference is patently unreasonable given the DeWitt court’s express findings that traditional race-neutral districting principles were not subordinated to racial considerations in the redistrieting process. To the contrary, a much more reasonable (and indeed more probable) inference to be drawn from the timing and texts of the Miller and DeWitt decisions is that the Miller Court implicitly recognized the facts and holding of DeWitt when it wrote: Where these [traditional districting principles] or other race-neutral considerations are the basis for redistrieting legislation, and are not subordinated to race, a state can ‘defeat a claim that a district has been gerrymandered on racial lines.’ Miller, 515 U.S. at 916, 115 S.Ct. at 2488 (iciting Shaw, 509 U.S. at 647-48,113 S.Ct. at 2827). DeWitt does not establish that court-ordered redistrieting plans avoid strict scrutiny; rather, it completes the rule announced in Shaw and Miller. That is, strict scrutiny will only apply where racial considerations predominate over traditional race-neutral districting principles. This court therefore concludes that since racial considerations predominated over all other factors in the configuration of the Fourth Congressional District adopted by the Hastert court (see infra section III.B), the court-ordered plan must be subject to strict scrutiny. B. Racial Considerations Predominated in Configuring the Fourth Congressional District The Supreme Court in Miller identified two means of establishing that race predominated over all other considerations in the drawing of district boundaries; namely, circumstantial evidence of a district’s shape and demographics or direct evidence of the legislative purpose. Since the Illinois General Assembly did not create the majority-minority Hispanic Fourth Congressional District, King’s only apparent recourse was to prove that the Hastert court adopted a racially based redistrieting plan through circumstantial evidence. Establishing that racial considerations predominated over all of the other complex factors involved in redistricting through indirect, inferential evidence is an extremely difficult burden under any set of circumstances. Establishing that race predominated in a court-ordered redistrieting plan would normally make this burden exponentially more difficult. Three factors, however, eased rather than enhanced the difficulty of King’s burden: first, the Hastert court employed a unique process to select a redistricting plan; second, the Hastert court found that the Fourth Congressional District was bizarrely configured; and third, the Hastert court did not make any findings of fact to explain how and why the district’s boundaries came to have such a bizarre configuration. The interplay of these three factors enabled King to fulfill his burden. 1. The Unique Process of Selecting a Redistrieting Plan At the onset of the consolidated Hastert proceedings, the various litigants presented six different reapportionment plans to the court for consideration. Due to significant time constraints, the court did not have the option of bifurcating the proceedings to separately decide the legal issues (e.g., the constitutionality of the existing plan; whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act required the creation of an Hispanic majority district) and the appropriate remedy. The court thus was unable to conduct hearings (or appoint a Master to do the same) to consider the merits and constitutionality of each of these submitted plans. The court instead adopted streamlined discovery and trial procedures which facilitated and condoned the pre-trial resolution of disputed issues by the litigants. Two of these pre-trial agreements are particularly important to this analysis: first, the parties universally agreed that population and demographic changes “mandated the creation of an Hispanic majority district;” and second, the parties agreed in principle to the configuration of the proposed Hispanic district. As a result of other pre-trial agreements, the parties revised and eliminated competing redistricting plans until only two remained for the court’s consideration. The court’s primary task at trial was thus narrowed to determining which of these two revised plans better met constitutional and statutory requirements. Since the configuration of the Fourth Congressional District was virtually the same regardless of which proposed plan the court adopted, the district’s bizarre shape was effectively determined by the litigants and not the court. Under these circumstances, the litigants’ intentions and purpose become an important source of information on the role that race played in the configuration of the boundaries’ borders. 2. The Bizarrely Drawn District The Fourth Congressional District is an uncouth configuration: a Rorschach ink blot turned on its side; a wobbly eighth note; an unusually shaped bar-bell. However it is characterized, its shape is bizarre. The District’s extremely irregular configuration create, a strong inference (but not a presumption) that its shape rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to separate voters into different districts on the basis of race. See, e.g., Miller, 515 U.S. at 912-13, 115 S.Ct. at 2486 (shape may be persuasive circumstantial evidence that race for its own- sake was the dominant rationale in the drawing of district lines); Shaw, 509 U.S. at 645-49, 113 S.Ct. at 2826-28; Johnson v. Mortham, 915 F.Supp. 1529, 1550-51 (N.D.Fla. 1995) (evidence of bizarre configuration by itself was sufficient to establish racial gerrymander). 3. The Lack of Findings of Fact by the Hastert Court An important effect of the streamlined H