Flashback 1976. Federal Judge Acts As Dictator. Mobile in Uproar Over U.S. Judge Who Told It to Revise Government

Flashback 1976. The New York Times reports:

A Federal court ruling ordering Mobile to scrap its city government and replace it with a new one more favorable to blacks has generated a storm of protest in this city, including a petition drive to impeach the judge.

“This is the first time,” said Mayor Lambert C. Mims in an interview, “that the Federal Government has told a free people what kind of government they must have.”

“If they can do that, they can tell you what time to go to bed, what time to get up, and whether to have pork and beans for lunch.”

Yesterday, a newly formed group called the Constitutional Crisis Committee began distributing petitions calling for the impeachment of Federal Judge Virgil Pittman of the Southern District of Alabama.

Judge Pittman two weeks ago ruled in a class‐action suit brought by city blacks that the Mobile system of government, a three‐member city commission, with each member elected by citywide vote, “precludes a black voter from an effective participation in the election system.”

He ordered that in the municipal election next year the commission was to be replaced by a mayor elected by citywide vote and nine council members elected from single‐member districts.

Given the city's racially polarized voting pattern, this would likely result in the election of at least three and possibly four blacks.

The court found that the vote of Mobile's blacks, 35 percent of the population, was “diluted” by the white majority, making it unlikely to elect a black in a citywide vote.

The ruling is believed to be one of the most extensive intrusion by the courts so far into legislative and executive affairs. The Mobile City Commission was established under legislative power of the State of Alabama in 1911 and has twice been retained by popular vote of the city's voters.

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