Opinion of the Court
was 27%, but there was only one majority-minority district. Id., at 906. To comply with the VRA, Georgia thought it necessary to create two more majority-minority districts—achieving proportionality. Id., at 920–921. But like North Carolina in Shaw, Georgia could not create the districts without flouting traditional criteria. One district “centered around four discrete, widely spaced urban centers that ha[d] absolutely nothing to do with each other, and stretch[ed] the district hundreds of miles across rural counties and narrow swamp corridors.” 515 U. S., at 908. “Geographically,” we said of the map, “it is a monstrosity.” Id., at 909.
In Bush v. Vera, a plurality of the Court again explained how traditional districting criteria limited any tendency of the VRA to compel proportionality. The case concerned Texas’s creation of three additional majority-minority districts. 517 U. S., at 957. Though the districts brought the State closer to proportional representation, we nevertheless held that they constituted racial gerrymanders in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. That was because the districts had “no integrity in terms of traditional, neutral redistricting criteria.” Id., at 960. One of the majority-black districts consisted “of narrow and bizarrely shaped tentacles.” Id., at 965. The proposed majority-Hispanic district resembled “a sacred Mayan bird” with “[s]pindly legs reach[ing] south” and a “plumed head ris[ing] northward.” Id., at 974.
The point of all this is a simple one. Forcing proportional representation is unlawful and inconsistent with this Court’s approach to implementing §2. The numbers bear the point out well. At the congressional level, the fraction of districts in which black-preferred candidates are likely to win “is currently below the Black share of the eligible voter population in every state but three.” Brief for Professors Jowei Chen et al. as Amici Curiae 3 (Chen Brief). Only one
