William O. Douglas

“ Racial electoral registers, like religious ones, have no place in a society that honors the Lincoln tradition-'of the people, by the people, for the people.' Here the individual is important, not his race, his creed, or his color. ”

“ Here no Negroes are deprived of the franchise. Rather, zigzag, tortuous lines are drawn to concentrate Negroes and Puerto Ricans in Manhattan's Eighteenth Congressional District and practically to exclude them from the Seventeenth Congressional District. Neighborhoods in our larger cities often contain members of only one race; and those who draw the lines of Congressional Districts cannot be expected to disregard neighborhoods in an effort to make each district a multiracial one. ”

“ The principle of equality is at war with the notion that District A must be represented by a Negro, as it is with the notion that District B must be represented by a Caucasian, District C by a Jew, District D by a Catholic, and so on. ”

“ When racial or religious lines are drawn by the State, the multiracial, multireligious communities that our Constitution seeks to weld together as one become separatist; antagonisms that relate to race or to religion rather than to political issues are generated; communities seek not the best representati e but the best racial or religious partisan. ”

“ Manhattan is divided into four districts and as a result of the serpentine path that the lines follow, those districts reflect substantial, though not complete, segregation by races:
20th.................. 72.5. 27.5 In 1961 the legislature expanded the Seventeenth District by altering its boundaries in three respects: (1) it added an area on the upper East Side between 59th Street and 89th Street of whose population Negroes and Puerto Ricans make up 2.7% of the total ”

“ They demand an election of their own representatives to these councils in all the stages just as in Cyprus, where, I think, Muslims vote by themselves; they have nine votes and the non-Muslims have three or the other way about ”

“ The legislature is allotted 70% to the Greek community and 30% to the Turkish. Id., Pt. IV, Art. 62 (2) . Each community elects a communal chamber that has legislative power over select matters, e.g., religion, education, personal status, etc. Id. Pt. V, Arts. 86, 87.↑ The 1927 Lebanese Constitution established a unicameral legislature. ”