Opinion of Roberts, C. J.
979. The court also explained that Alabama’s evidence of racial predominance in Cooper’s maps was exceedingly thin. Alabama’s expert, Thomas Bryan, “testified that he never reviewed the exhibits to Mr. Cooper’s report” and “that he never reviewed” one of the illustrative plans that Cooper submitted. Id., at 1006. Bryan further testified that he could offer no “conclusions or opinions as to the apparent basis of any individual line drawing decisions in Cooper’s illustrative plans.” 2 App. 740. By his own admission, Bryan’s analysis of any race predominance in Cooper’s maps “was pretty light.” Id., at 739. The District Court did not err in finding that race did not predominate in Cooper’s maps in light of the evidence before it.[1]
The dissent contends that race nevertheless predominated in both Cooper’s and Duchin’s maps because they were designed to hit “ ‘express racial target[s]’ ”—namely, two “50%-plus majority-black districts.” Post, at 15 (opinion of Thomas, J.) (quoting Bethune-Hill, 580 U. S., at 192). This argument fails in multiple ways. First, the dissent’s reliance on Bethune-Hill is mistaken. In that case, this Court was unwilling to conclude that a State’s maps were produced in a racially predominant manner. Instead, we
- ↑ The dissent claims that Cooper “treated ‘the minority population in and of itself’ as the paramount community of interest in his plans.” Post, at 14 (opinion of Thomas, J.) (quoting 2 App. 601). But Cooper testified that he was “aware that the minority population in and of itself can be a community of interest.” Id., at 601 (emphasis added). Cooper then explained that the relevant community of interest here—the Black Belt—was a “historical feature” of the State, not a demographic one. Ibid. (emphasis added). The Black Belt, he emphasized, was defined by its “historical boundaries”—namely, the group of “rural counties plus Montgomery County in the central part of the state.” Ibid. The District Court treated the Black Belt as a community of interest for the same reason.
The dissent also protests that Cooper’s “plans prioritized race over neutral districting criteria.” Post, at 14 (opinion of Thomas, J.). But as the District Court found, and as Alabama does not contest, Cooper’s maps satisfied other traditional criteria, such as compactness, contiguity, equal populations, and respect for political subdivisions.
