Opinion of the Court
remanded for the lower court to conduct the predominance analysis itself, explaining that “the use of an express racial target” was just one factor among others that the court would have to consider as part of “[a] holistic analysis.” Id., at 192. Justice Thomas dissented in relevant part, contending that because “the legislature sought to achieve a [black voting-age population] of at least 55%,” race necessarily predominated in its decisionmaking. Id., at 198 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). But the Court did not join in that view, and Justice Thomas again dissents along the same lines today.
The second flaw in the dissent’s proposed approach is its inescapable consequence: Gingles must be overruled. According to the dissent, racial predominance plagues every single illustrative map ever adduced at the first step of Gingles. For all those maps were created with an express target in mind—they were created to show, as our cases require, that an additional majority-minority district could be drawn. That is the whole point of the enterprise. The upshot of the approach the dissent urges is not to change how Gingles is applied, but to reject its framework outright.
The contention that mapmakers must be entirely “blind” to race has no footing in our §2 case law. The line that we have long drawn is between consciousness and predominance. Plaintiffs adduced at least one illustrative map that comported with our precedents. They were required to do no more to satisfy the first step of Gingles.
2
The next condition Alabama would graft onto §2 is a requirement that plaintiffs demonstrate, at the totality of circumstances stage, that the State’s enacted plan contains fewer majority-minority districts than the race-neutral benchmark. Brief for Alabama 43. If it does not, then §2 should drop out of the picture. Id., at 44.
Alabama argues that is what should have happened here.
