Protection Clause reaches only those racial imbalances shown to be intentionally caused by the State....

With this precursor of future federal court action denouncing racial balancing, Amicus concluded a forceful brief in support of the motion for reconsideration.
 

The extraordinary assistance I received from Senator Kopp and others in my pro bono practice ultimately enabling a creditable showing in the Carlin case merits relating. One matter leading to it was a pro bono Motion for a writ of mandate I undertook in 1977 for a group of very disgruntled backcountry citizens who were practically donating their services to their communities.

These citizens were facing penalties for being late to report nothing to report — namely, that they had received no contributions and had no campaign expenditures — in their campaigns for local offices under an early 70s campaign reform enactment known as Proposition 9. The County of San Diego was enforcing these assessments in Small Claims Court against them and many other similarly situated candidates, who were miles away from the courthouse.

The local group strongly felt the law should be challenged because of its mandatory no excuse thrust, but were not financially able to mount a “federal” case against it, so I undertook it as a public interest matter. With our usual eye on expenses, my wife served the County Debt Collector personally and tactfully with my petition. He responded appreciatively by visiting with us about the difficulties of his job, and showed us a rock on his desk about the size of a baseball that had been thrown through his window. This reminded me that I had been the supervising federal clerk in San Diego, and not to forget that, which served me well later in dealing with the state court clerks and the information they offered about filing fee waivers.

A San Francisco legal firm had graciously assisted me with information about this new law, the application of which had concerned some of its clients. Upon my informing them of the successful result, they