Page:Allen v. Milligan.pdf/6

Syllabus

misplaced because those maps do not accurately represent the districting process in Alabama. Regardless, the map-comparison test that Alabama proposes is flawed in its fundamentals. Neither the text of §2 nor the fraught debate that produced it suggests that “equal access” to the fundamental right of voting turns on technically complicated computer simulations. Further, while Alabama has repeatedly emphasized that HB1 cannot have violated §2 because none of plaintiffs’ two million odd maps contained more than one majority-minority district, that (albeit very big) number is close to irrelevant in practice, where experts estimate the possible number of Alabama districting maps numbers is at least in the trillion trillions.

Alabama would also require plaintiffs to demonstrate that any deviations between the State’s enacted plan and race-neutral alternatives “can be explained only by racial discrimination.” Brief for Alabama 44 (emphasis added). But the Court’s precedents and the legislative compromise struck in the 1982 amendments clearly rejected treating discriminatory intent as a requirement for liability under §2. Pp. 22, 25–30.

(d) The Court disagrees with Alabama’s assertions that the Court should stop applying §2 in cases like these because the text of §2 does not apply to single-member redistricting and because §2 is unconstitutional as the District Court applied it here. Alabama’s understanding of §2 would require abandoning four decades of the Court’s §2 precedents. The Court has unanimously held that §2 and the Gingles framework apply to claims challenging single-member districts. Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 40. As Congress is undoubtedly aware of the Court’s construction of §2 to apply to districting challenges, statutory stare decisis counsels staying the course until and unless Congress acts. In any event, the statutory text supports the conclusion that §2 applies to single-member districts. Indeed, the contentious debates in Congress about proportionality would have made little sense if §2’s coverage was as limited as Alabama contends.

The Court similarly rejects Alabama’s argument that §2 as applied to redistricting is unconstitutional under the Fifteenth Amendment. The Court held over 40 years ago “that, even if §1 of the [Fifteenth] Amendment prohibits only purposeful discrimination,” City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 173, the VRA’s “ban on electoral changes that are discriminatory in effect is an appropriate method of promoting the purposes of the Fifteenth Amendment,” id., at 177. Alabama’s contention that the Fifteenth Amendment does not authorize race-based redistricting as a remedy for §2 violations similarly fails. The Court is not persuaded by Alabama’s arguments that §2 as interpreted in Gingles exceeds the remedial authority of Congress.

The Court’s opinion does not diminish or disregard the concern that