Opinion of the Court
specific illustrative maps that a plaintiff adduces. Deviation from that map shows it is possible that the State’s map has a disparate effect on account of race. The remainder of the Gingles test helps determine whether that possibility is reality by looking to polarized voting preferences and the frequency of racially discriminatory actions taken by the State, past and present.
A State’s liability under §2, moreover, must be determined “based on the totality of circumstances.” 52 U. S. C. §10301(b). Yet Alabama suggests there is only one “circumstance[]” that matters—how the State’s map stacks up relative to the benchmark. That single-minded view of §2 cannot be squared with the VRA’s demand that courts employ a more refined approach. And we decline to adopt an interpretation of §2 that would “revise and reformulate the Gingles threshold inquiry that has been the baseline of our §2 jurisprudence” for nearly forty years. Bartlett, 556 U. S., at 16 (plurality opinion); see also Wisconsin Legislature, 595 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7) (faulting lower court for “improperly reduc[ing] Gingles’ totality-of-circumstances analysis to a single factor”); De Grandy, 512 U. S., at 1018 (“An inflexible rule would run counter to the textual command of §2, that the presence or absence of a violation be assessed ‘based on the totality of circumstances.’ ”).[1]
2
Alabama also argues that the race-neutral benchmark is required because our existing §2 jurisprudence inevitably demands racial proportionality in districting, contrary to the last sentence of §2(b). But properly applied, the Gingles framework itself imposes meaningful constraints on pro-
- ↑ The principal dissent complains that “what the District Court did here is essentially no different from what many courts have done for decades under this Court’s superintendence.” Post, at 47 (opinion of Thomas, J.). That is not such a bad definition of stare decisis.
