Alito, J., dissenting
A
The major theme of this part of the Court’s opinion is that Alabama’s argument, in effect, is that “Gingles must be overruled.” Ante, at 25. But as I wrote at the beginning of this opinion, I would decide these cases under the Gingles framework. We should recognize, however, that the Gingles framework is not the same thing as a statutory provision, and it is a mistake to regard it as such. National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, 598 U. S. ___, ___ (2023) (slip op., at 9) (“[T]he language of an opinion is not always to be parsed as though we were dealing with language of a statute” (quoting Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 341 (1979))). In applying that framework today, we should keep in mind subsequent developments in our case law.
One important development has been a sharpening of the methodology used in interpreting statutes. Gingles was decided at a time when the Court’s statutory interpretation decisions sometimes paid less attention to the actual text of the statute than to its legislative history, and Gingles falls into that category. The Court quoted §2 but then moved briskly to the Senate Report. See 478 U. S., at 36–37, 43, and n. 7. Today, our statutory interpretation decisions focus squarely on the statutory text. National Assn. of Mfrs. v. Department of Defense, 583 U. S. 109, 127 (2018); Puerto Rico v. Franklin Cal. Tax-Free Trust, 579 U. S. 115, 125 (2016); cf. Brnovich, 594 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 14). And as we held in Brnovich, “[t]he key requirement” set out in the text of §2 is that a State’s electoral process must be “ ‘equally open’ ” to members of all racial groups. Id., at ___ (slip op., at 15). The Gingles framework should be interpreted in a way that gives effect to this standard.
Another development that we should not ignore concerns our case law on racial predominance. Post-Gingles decisions like Miller, 515 U. S., at 920, Shaw II, 517 U. S., at 906–907, and Vera, 517 U. S., at 979 (plurality opinion), made it clear that it is unconstitutional to use race as a
