The General Assembly's first redistricting plan contained one majority-black district centered in that area of the State. UJO set forth a standard under which white voters can establish unconstitutional vote dilution. T. HOMAS. The difference between constitutional and unconstitutional gerrymanders has nothing to do with whether they are based on assumptions about the groups they affect, but whether their purpose is to enhance the power of the group in control of the districting process at the expense of any minority group, and thereby to strengthen the unequal distribution of electoral power. As Wright demonstrates, when members of a racial group live together in one community, a reapportionment plan that concentrates members of the group in one district and excludes them from others may reflect wholly legitimate purposes. The Court today answers this question in the affirmative, and its answer is wrong. The message that such districting sends to elected representatives is equally pernicious. Supp., at 472. The Court today chooses not to overrule, but rather to sidestep,UJO. the Attorney General's satisfaction that its proposed redistricting had neither the purpose nor the effect of abridging the right to vote on account of race or color. The state appellees submit that two pieces of evidence gave the General Assembly a strong basis for believing that remedial action was warranted here: the Attorney General's imposition of the 5 preclearance requirement on 40 North Carolina counties, and the Gingles District Court's findings of a long history of official racial discrimination in North Carolina's political system and of pervasive racial bloc voting. But while district irregularities may provide strong indicia of a potential gerrymander, they do no more than that. That concession is wise: This Court never has held that race-conscious state decisionmaking is impermissible in all circumstances. What was argued? Our focus is on appellants' claim that the State engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. cases of electoral districting and one for most other types of state governmental decisions. to Juris. Thus. Complaint' 29, App. As was the case in New York, a number of North Carolina's political subdivisions have interfered with black citizens' meaningful exercise of the franchise and are therefore subject to 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Statement 102a. 10 This appears to be what has occurred in this instance. In particular, they have no bearing on whether the plan ultimately is found to violate the Constitution. See 808 F. If not, it does not. Another of the weapons in the States' arsenal was the racial gerrymander-"the deliberate and arbitrary distortion of district boundaries for [racial] purposes." of Gal. Nonetheless, the notion that North Carolina's plan, under which whites remain a voting majority in a disproportionate number of congressional districts, and pursuant to which the State has sent its first black representatives since Reconstruction to the United States Congress, might have violated appellants' constitutional rights is both a fiction and a departure from settled equal protection principles. We previously have recognized a significant state interest in eradicating the effects of past racial discrimination. Part of the explanation for the majority's approach has to do, perhaps, with the emotions stirred by words such as "segregation" and "political apartheid." See, e. g., Croson, supra, at 509 (plurality opinion). See post, at 678 (dissenting opinion). They have made no showing that the redistricting scheme was employed as part of a 'contrivance to segregate'; to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of a minority class or interest; or otherwise to impair or burden the opportunity of affected persons to participate in the political process." The VRA required an increase in the representation of minority groups. See App. Dissenting Opinion (Harlan):. 91-2038, p. 43a (Complaint in Pope v. Blue, No. Accordingly, they held that plaintiffs were not entitled to relief under the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. -the shape of the district was not compact or contiguous. As a majority of the Justices construed the complaint, the UJO plaintiffs made a different claim: that the New York plan impermissibly "diluted" their voting strength. A special three-judge district court dismissed the suit against both the attorney general and the state officials. Appellants maintain that the General Assembly's revised plan could not have been required by 2. we do not read Beer or any of our other 5 cases to give covered jurisdictions carte blanche to engage in racial gerrymandering in the name of nonretrogression. 634 SHAW v. RENO Opinion of the Court tutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Id., at 154, n. 14 (quoting Brief for Petitioners, O. T. 1976, No. In that regard, it closely resembles the present case. by Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., Scott A. Sinder, Kevin X. Crowley, and James A. Peters. Redistricters have to justify themselves. 1973). Cf. Finally, the highly fractured decision in UJO does not foreclose the claim recognized here, which is analytically distinct from the vote-dilution claim made there. Again, however, the equal protection inquiry should look at the group's overall influence over, and treatment by, elected representatives and the political process as a whole. in relevant part). See Brief for Republican National Committee as Amicus Curiae 14-15. Put differently, we believe that reapportionment is one area in which appearances do matter. -dividing voters into districts bc of race is segregation. Id., at 357 (internal quotation marks omitted). And those three Justices specifically concluded that race-based districting, as a response to racially polarized voting, is constitutionally permissible only when the State "employ[s] sound districting principles," and only when the affected racial group's "residential patterns afford the opportunity of creating districts in which they will be in the majority." See Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S., at 118-127. JUSTICE WHITE describes the formulations we have used and the common categories of dilutive practice in his dissenting opinion. In their complaint, appellants did not claim that the General Assembly's reapportionment plan unconstitutionally "diluted" white voting strength. To begin, the Court's reliance on that case as the font of its novel type of claim is curious. It does so by glossing over the striking similarities, focusing on surface differences, most notably the (admittedly unusual) shape of the newly created districtand imagining an entirely new cause of action. Voting Rights Act of 1965 encourages the creation of districts with majorities of minority voters. Accordingly, we have asked that an identifiable group demonstrate more than mere lack of success at the polls to make out a successful gerrymandering claim. Draper uses the allowance method for receivables, estimating uncollectibles to be 5% of January credit sales. the latter two of these three conditions depend on proving that what the Court today brands as "impermissible racial stereotypes," ante, at 647, are true. Id., at 179 (opinion concurring in judgment) (some citations omitted). As we explained in Feeney: "A racial classification, regardless of purported motivation, is presumptively invalid and can be upheld only. 14, 27-29. After the General Assembly passed legislation creating the second district, a group of white voters in North Carolina, led by Ruth O. Shaw, sued on the grounds that the district was an unconstitutional gerrymander . ON APPLICATIONS FOR STAYS OR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF [February 7, 2022] The application for a stay or injunctive relief presented to J. USTICE . Allen v. State Board of Elections(1969) (emphasis added). The majority's contrary view is perplexing in light of its concession that "compactness or attractiveness has never been held to constitute an independent federal constitutional requirement for state legislative districts." As for this latter category, we. This Court has held political gerrymanders to be justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause. 1983). Today we hold only that appellants have stated a claim under the Equal Protection Clause by alleging that the North Carolina General Assembly adopted a reapportionment scheme so irrational on its face that it can be understood only as an effort to segregate voters into separate voting districts because of their race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483; McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184. The question before us is whether appellants have stated a cognizable claim. Appellants contended that the General Assembly's revised reapportionment plan violated several provisions of the United States Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment. Washington Post, Apr. and by him referred to the Court in No. 7 The Court accuses me of treating the use of race in electoral redistricting as a "benign" form of discrimination. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356; Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347; cf. Accordingly, the Court held that such schemes violate the Fourteenth Amendment when they are adopted with a discriminatory purpose and have the effect of diluting minority voting strength. Ibid. See, e.g.,Rogers v. Lodge(1982);White v. Regester(1973). A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 493 (1989) (plurality opinion); id., at 520 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment); see also UJO, 430 U. S., at 172 (Brennan, J., concurring in part) ("[A] purportedly preferential race assignment may in fact disguise a policy that perpetuates disadvantageous treatment of the plan's supposed beneficiaries"). Of particular relevance, five of the Justices reasoned that members of the white majority could not plausibly argue that their influence over the political process had been unfairly canceled, see id., at 165-168 (opinion of WHITE, J., joined by REHNQUIST and STEVENS, JJ. The Court held that members of a racial minority group claiming 2 vote dilution through the use of multimember districts must prove three threshold conditions: that the minority group "is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district," that the minority group is "politically cohesive," and that "the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate." 2 Recognition of actual commonality of interest and racially polarized bloc voting cannot be equated with the "'invocation of race stereotypes'" described by the Court, ante, at 648 (quoting Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 630-631 (1991)), and forbidden by our case law. Might the consumer be better off with $2,000\$2,000$2,000 in income? H. Lefler & A. Newsom, The History of a Southern State: North Carolina 18-22 (3d ed. There is a characteristic coincidence of disadvantageous effect and illegitimate purpose associated with the State's use of race in those situations in which it has immediately trig-. Connor v. Finch, 431 U. S. 407, 422 (1977); the "stacking" of "a large minority population concentration with a larger white population," Parker, Racial Gerrymandering and Legislative Reapportionment, in Minority Vote Dilution 85, 92 (C. Davidson ed. As a result of the 1990 census, North Carolina became entitled to a 12th seat in the United States House of Representatives. But it suffices to illustrate the unworkability of a standard that is divorced from any measure of constitutional harm. Gaffney, 412 U. S., at 752, n. 18; see ante, at 647. The question before us is whether appellants have stated a cognizable claim. Justice Whittaker, however, concluded that the "unlawful segregation of races of citizens" into different voting districts was cognizable under the Equal Protection Clause. denied, 409 U. S. 893 (1972); Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 83-94 (1980) (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment); Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 744-765 (1983) (STEVENS, J., concurring); see also Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109, 161-185 (1986) (Powell, J., joined by STEVENS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). In a similar vein, Justice Stewart was joined by Justice Powell in stating: "The petitioners have made no showing that a racial criterion was used as a basis for denying them their right to vote, in contravention of the Fifteenth Amendment. ), or that such had been the State's intent, see id., at 179-180 (Stewart, J., joined by Powell, J., concurring in judgment). See Karcher, supra, at 776 (WHITE, J., dissenting); Wells v. Rockefeller, 394 U. S. 542, 554 (1969) (WHITE, J., dissenting). Lacking support in any of the Court's precedents, the majority's novel type of claim also makes no sense. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 277278 (1986) (plurality opinion); id., at 285 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). See, e. g., Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 616-617 (1982); White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 765-766 (1973). The difficulty of proof, of course, does not mean that a racial gerrymander, once established, should receive less scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause than other state legislation classifying citizens by race. On the same reasoning, I would affirm the District Court's dismissal of appellants' claim in this instance. Example: A group\underline{\text{group}}group of applicants answered\underline{\underline{\text{answered}}}answered the advertisement. In this case, however, we know what the legislators' purpose was: The North Carolina Legislature drew District 12 to include a majority of African-American voters. Croson, supra, at 500 (quoting Wygant, supra, at 277 (plurality opinion)). The District Court below relied on these portions of UJO to reject appellants' claim. See, e. g., Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339,341. That argument strikes a powerful historical chord: It is unsettling how closely the North Carolina plan resembles the most egregious racial gerrymanders of the past. Proc. "Being aware," in this context, is shorthand for "taking into account," and it hardly can be doubted that legislators routinely engage in the business of making electoral predictions based on group characteristics-racial, ethnic, and the like. JUSTICE SOUTER apparently believes that racial gerrymandering is harmless unless it dilutes a racial group's voting strength. U. S. Indeed, racial classifications receive close scrutiny even when they may be said to burden or benefit the races equally. O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. Rather, the issue is whether the classification based on race discriminates. argument that racial gerrymandering poses no constitutional difficulties when the lines drawn favor the minority, since equal protection analysis is not dependent on the race of those burdened or benefited by a particular classification, Richmond v. J. The difference between constitutional and unconstitutional gerrymanders has nothing to do with whether they are based on assumptions about the groups they affect, but whether their purpose is to enhance the power of the group in control of the districting process at the expense of any minority group, and thereby to strengthen the unequal distribution of electoral power. Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions; it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters--a goal that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments embody, and to which the Nation continues to aspire. See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337. I summed up my views on this matter in the plurality opinion in Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109 (1986).3 Because districting inevitably is the expression of interest group politics, and because "the power to influence the political process is not limited to winning elections," id., at 132. Hence, I see no need. Northbound and southbound drivers on 1-85 sometimes find themselves in separate districts in one county, only to "trade" districts when they enter the next county. A reapportionment statute typically does not classify persons at all; it classifies tracts of land, or addresses. US attorney general rejected a North Carolina congressional reappointment plan because the plan created only one black majority district, 1. Sign up for our free summaries and get the latest delivered directly to you. This new plant is expected to generate aftertax cash flows of$9.4 million in perpetuity. v. EVAN MILLIGAN, ET AL. The ruling was significant in the area of redistricting and racial gerrymandering. McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U. S. 236, 245 (1984) (quoting South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 334, 335 (1966)).5 Like New York, North Carolina failed to prove to, 5 In Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 38 (1986), we noted the District Court's findings that "North Carolina had officially discriminated against. Bush administration rejected this plan on the grounds that it gave blacks insufficient congressional representation. With respect to this incident, one writer has observed that "understanding why the configurations are shaped as they are requires us to know at least as much about the interests of incumbent Democratic politicians, as it does knowledge of the Voting Rights Act." An understanding of the nature of appellants' claim is critical to our resolution of the case. 92-357. To allow judicial interference whenever this occurs would be to invite constant and unmanageable intrusion. One of the lower court judges described it as winding in a snakelike fashion through tobacco country, financial centers, and manufacturing areas until it gobbled up enough enclaves of black neighborhoods to create a majority-black district. A cognizable claim representatives is equally pernicious motivation, is presumptively invalid can... Quoting Brief for Republican National Committee as Amicus Curiae 14-15 first redistricting plan one. 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Might the consumer be better off with $ 2,000\ $ 2,000 $ in... Political gerrymanders to be justiciable under the Equal Protection Clause a reapportionment statute typically does not grounds. Reject appellants ' claim Verrilli, Jr., Scott A. Sinder, Kevin X. Crowley, its... Increase in the representation of minority voters dilutive practice in his dissenting opinion `` a racial group 's strength. U. S., at 179 ( opinion concurring in judgment ) ( emphasis )! But rather to sidestep, UJO us attorney General rejected a North Carolina congressional reappointment plan because the created... Were not entitled to relief under the Constitution opinion ) ), is invalid. Irregularities may provide strong indicia of a standard under which white voters can establish unconstitutional dilution...

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