WPCFI 2BBcR Z33|o "m^36Gff%==\o3=33ffffffffff33oooQzKfzztzp=o=o\%ffQi\=bp:6m:p\ifQUGpbbbX=o=o=3============i:fffffQ\\\\K:K:K:K:p\\\\ppppbfi\\b\zifffQQQQi\\\\bbbbbbppK:K:K:K:fmz:z:z:z:z:pppp\\QQQtUtUtUtUzGzGzGppppppbpXpXpXiz:pQtUzGbbi\pNo3o\6QNNfff=7f=f=%GGf//\\pp%G=ooee3o<gwZZskkkkB{sssZZcJRRRkkkl_dRZ>\J\B\JlZoN21mRgR\lNaJlRsRSRYZB\BhVrNlRwgsg_BZ11RVVg_]Zk___________________BBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ111111111111RRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVVVVggggggggggggggggggggl\l2lhs2hR"m^!$/CCdb((gn|g|n|SR}{nnnRRnnnnnnnRRRRRRRRRRRRSS2/#bccic"X^?S}}SSS}?S?F}}}}}}}}}}SS}a}SFS}S}ooS}FSF}oaS}}}oc7cS?SS*SSSSSSSSSSF}}}}}oooooaFaFaFaF}}}}}}}}}}}}}oooooooo}}}}}}aFaFaFaF}FFFFF}}oooaaaaSSS}oooFoaS}}}NX?}S}}}}}}KS}K}KF}}}SS}}S}KF*RRdE|>gn|g|n|SR{nnnRRnnnnnnnRRRRRRRRRRRRSS"m^*,:SS}z22K[*2**SSSSSSSSSS**[[[Collluldu}=Sudzudul_dzljj\2[2[KWWW]WP]d1C]Pqb]P]WLPbWvTTI2[2[2*222222222222V/lSlSlSlSlSwlClKlKlKlK=/=/=/=/z\uKuKuKuKz\z\z\z\jQlSuVuKuKjQuKdVlSlSlSlClClClCuVlKlKlKlKuQuQuQuQuQuQ}\}\=/=/=/=/SuYd/d/d/d/d/z\z\z\z\uKuK}lClClC_E_E_E_Ed:d:d:z\z\z\z\z\z\ujQ\H\H\HuVd/z\lC_Ed:jQjQuVuKz\N[*[K,C@@SSS2-}}S2ooS}2::S''KK\\:2[[RRk*[11RRRkskk[ZZ<[){kJ%>gwZZskkkkB{sssZZcJRRRkkklWdPZH\I\I\IlWoY2(mWgRklWaMlWs\SCYG\IhSr\lWw_s\_BZ11RVVg_]Zk___________________BBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ111111111111RRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVVVVggggggggggggggggggggl\l2lhs2hR"m^*2gwZZskkkkB{sssZZcJRRRkkkl_dRZ>\J\B\JlZoN21mRgR\lNaJlRsRSRYZB\BhVrNlRwgsg_BZ11RVVg_]Zk___________________BBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ111111111111RRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVVVVggggggggggggggggggggl\l2lhs2hR"m^)+9RRzx11IY)1))RRRRRRRRRR))YYYAljjjrjbrz>RRR1,zzR1llRz199R&&IIZZ91YYQQi)Y00QQQiqiiYXX;Y(yiH$<euXXqiiii@yqqqXXaHQQQiiij]bQXHYYY66^E@@@@(JEEE66;,1N11@@@A9<16%7,7(7,A6C/A1>1P7A/:,A1E12156(7(>4E/A1H>E>9(6144>986@9999999999999999999(((((((666666666666666666661111111444444444444>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>A7AA>E>12= c1 c4`7E="m^!(0CCdf((]<<8(I(I(!((x((((((((((C(TETETETETEhWW5W5W5W5W51(1(1(1(bI]<]<]<]gwZZskkkkB{sssZZcJRRRkkklWdPZH\I\I\IlWoY2(mWgRklWaMlWs\SCYG\IhSr\lWw_s\_BZ11RVVg_]Zk___________________BBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ111111111111RRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVVVVggggggggggggggggggggl\l2lhs2hRX)o=3no P['C&P j YDS?s\  PCP ZDS?#皝4  p(AC[u![2*d[ P['CP ]I(!̤PI P['ChP\u![2*d[ P['CP]u![2*4[e xzCX r!Y1)LY P['CP^)o=3no P['C&P_)o=34Roe xzC&X`UC%D4C P['CJPaF66 P['CP]I(!4PIe xzChX u![2*4[e xzCX x(BQck QuoteSingle spaced indented quote - Circv C   (  Cd  ( ( ( 2FF2 >o;@HATC5 EllipsisParagraph Ellipsis<;X` hp x (#%'0*,.8135@8: in several States, including Georgia. South Carolina v.  J Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 309 (1966). After a brief interlude of black suffrage enforced by federal troops but accompanied by rampant violence against blacks, Georgia held a constitutional convention in 1877. Its purpose, according to the convention's leader, was to  #! `fix it so that the people shall rule and the Negro shall never be heard from.' e!  McDonald et al., Georgia, in Quiet Revolution in the South 68 (C. Davidson & B. Grofman eds. 1994) (quoting Robert Toombs). In pursuit of this objective, Georgia enacted a cumulative poll tax, requiring voters to show they had paid past as well as current poll taxes; one historian described this tax as the most effective bar to Negro suffrage ever devised. A. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem 355 (1908).  In 1890, the Georgia General Assembly authorized white primaries; keeping blacks out of the Democratic primary effectively excluded them from Georgia's political life, for victory in the Democratic primary was  JF tantamount to election. McDonald et al., supra, at 68!69. Early in this century, Georgia Governor Hoke"   Smith persuaded the legislature to pass the Disenfranchisement Act of 1908; true to its title, this measure added various property, good character, and literacy requirements that, as administered, served to keep  J` blacks from voting. Id., at 69; see also Katzenbach, 383 U.S., at 310 (tests of this order were specifically designed to prevent Negroes from voting). The result, as one commentator observed 25 years later, was an  u ! `almost absolute exclusion of the Negro voice in state  J and federal elections.' !  McDonald et al., supra, at 70 (quoting R. Wardlaw, Negro Suffrage in Georgia, 1867!1930, p. 69 (unpublished 1932)).  Faced with a political situation scarcely open to selfcorrection"disenfranchised blacks had no electoral influence, hence no muscle to lobby the legislature for change"the Court intervened. It invalidated white  J primaries, see Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944),  JX and other burdens on minority voting. See, e.g., Schnell  J0 v. Davis, 336 U.S. 933 (1949) (per curiam) (discrimina J tory application of voting tests); Lane v. Wilson, 307  J U.S. 268 (1939) (procedural hurdles); Guinn v. United  J States, 238 U.S. 347 (1915) (grandfather clauses).  It was against this backdrop that the Court, construing the Equal Protection Clause, undertook to ensure that apportionment plans do not dilute minority voting  J strength. See, e.g., Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U.S. 613, 617  J (1982); Regester, 412 U.S., at 765; Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U.S. 52, 57 (1964). By enacting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Congress heightened federal judicial involvement in apportionment, and also fashioned a role for the Attorney General. Section 2 creates a federal right of action to challenge vote dilution. Section 5 requires States with a history of discrimination to preclear any changes in voting practices with either a federal court (a threejudge United States District Court for the District of Columbia) or the Attorney General.  These Court decisions and congressional directions`"   significantly reduced voting discrimination against minorities. In the 1972 election, Georgia gained its first black Member of Congress since Reconstruction, and the 1981 apportionment created the State's first majority J` minority district.n` uB ԍ FTN    XgEpXFr  ddf < Georgia's population is approximately 27 percent black. Johnson  uB v. Miller, 864 F.Supp. 1354, 1385 (SD Ga. 1994). This voting district, however, was not gained easily. Georgia created it only after the United States District Court for the District of Columbia refused to preclear a predecessor apportionment plan that included no such district"an omission due in part to the influence of Joe Mack Wilson, then Chairman of the Georgia House Reapportionment Committee. As Wilson put it only 14 years ago,  &! `I don't want to draw  J nigger districts.' !  Busbee v. Smith, 549 F.Supp. 494, 501 (DC 1982).  9H1 d d,II؃  2  ;H2 d d-A؃  Jz  z2  Before Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. ___ (1993), this Court invoked the Equal Protection Clause to justify intervention in the quintessentially political task of legislative districting in two circumstances: to enforce the one J  persononevote requirement, see Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964); and to prevent dilution of a minority  J group's voting strength. See Regester, 412 U.S., at 765;  J Wright, 376 U.S., at 57.&n uBj ԍ FTN    XgEpXFr  ddf < In the vote dilution category, Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960), was a pathmarker. There, the City of Tuskegee redrew its boundaries to exclude black voters. This apportionment was unconstitutional not simply because it was motivated by race, but notably because it had a dilutive effect: it disenfranchised  uB ԚTuskegee's black community. See id., at 341 ( The essential inevitable effect of this redefinition of Tuskegee's boundaries is to remove from the city all save only four or five of its 400 Negro voters while not removing a single white voter or resident. The result of the Act is to deprive the Negro petitioners discriminatorily of the benefits of"##  uB residence in Tuskegee, including, inter alia, the right to vote in municipal elections.)."  Ԍ J  In Shaw, the Court recognized a third basis for an equal protection challenge to a State's apportionment plan. The Court wrote cautiously, emphasizing that judicial intervention is exceptional: [S]trict [judicial] scrutiny is in order, the Court declared, if a district is so extremely irregular on its face that it rationally can be viewed only as an effort to segregate the races for purposes of voting. 509 U.S., at ___ (slip op., at 10).  J   [E]xtrem[e] irregular[ity] was evident in Shaw, the Court explained, setting out this description of the North Carolina voting district under examination: BQ H C  , , (  It is approximately 160 miles long and, for much of its length, no wider than the I85 corridor. It winds in snakelike fashion through tobacco country, financial centers, and manufacturing areas until it gobbles in enough enclaves of black neighborhoods. Northbound and southbound drivers on I85 sometimes find themselves in separate districts in one county, only to `trade' districts when they enter the next county. Of the 10 counties through which District 12 passes, five are cut into three different districts; even towns are divided. At one point the district remains contiguous only because it intersects at a single point with two other districts before crossing over them. One state legislator has remarked that ` f!  [i]f you drove down the interstate with both car doors open, you'd kill most of the people in the district. p! ' Washington Post, Apr. 20, 1993, p. A4. The district even has inspired poetry: `Ask not for whom the line is drawn; it is drawn to avoid thee.' Grofman, Would Vince Lombardi Have Been Right If He Had Said: `When It Comes to  JC Redistricting, Race Isn't Everything, It's the OnlyC"   Thing'?, 14 Cardozo L. Rev. 1237, 1261, n. 96 (1993)  J (internal quotation marks omitted). Shaw, 509 U.S., at ___ (slip op., at 3!4) (some citations and internal quotation marks omitted).&DBQ d   J  ( , , The problem in Shaw was not the plan architects' consideration of race as relevant in redistricting. Rather, in the Court's estimation, it was the virtual exclusion of other factors from the calculus. Traditional districting practices were cast aside, the Court concluded, with race alone steering placement of district lines.  ;H2 d d-B؃  2  The record before us does not show that race similarly overwhelmed traditional districting practices in Georgia. Although the Georgia General Assembly prominently considered race in shaping the Eleventh District, race did not crowd out all other factors, as the Court found  JR it did in North Carolina's delineation of the Shaw district.  In contrast to the snakelike North Carolina district  J inspected in Shaw, Georgia's Eleventh District is hardly bizarre, extremely irregular, or irrational on its  J face. Id., at ___, ___, ___ (slip op., at 10, 12, 26). Instead, the Eleventh District's design reflects significant consideration of traditional districting factors (such as keeping political subdivisions intact) and the usual political process of compromise and trades for a variety of nonracial reasons. 864 F.Supp. 1354, 1397, n.5 (SD  J Ga. 1994) (Edmondson, J., dissenting); cf. ante, at 16 ( geometric shape of the Eleventh District may not seem bizarre on its face). The District covers a core area in central and eastern Georgia, and its total land area of 6,780 square miles is about average for the State. "    J Defendant's Exh. 177, p. 4.% uBh ԍ FTN    XgEpXFr  ddf < Georgia's First, Second, and Eighth Districts each have a total area of over 10,100 square miles. 864 F.Supp. 1354, 1396 (SD Ga. 1994) (Edmondson, J., dissenting). The border of the Eleventh District runs 1,184 miles, in line with Georgia's Second District, which has a 1,243mile border, and the State's Eighth District, with a border running 1,155 miles. See  J` 864 F.Supp., at 1396 (Edmondson, J., dissenting).e` uB ԍ FTN    XgEpXFr  ddf < Although the Eleventh District comes within 58 miles of crossing the entire State, this is not unusual in Georgia: the Ninth District spans the State's entire northern border, and the First, Second, and Eighth Districts begin at the Florida border and stretch north to almost the middle of the State. See 864 F.Supp., at 1396 (Edmondson, J., dissenting). In the 1980's, Georgia's Eighth District extended even farther, in an irregular pattern from the southeast border with Florida to nearly the Atlanta suburbs. See App. 80.e  Nor does the Eleventh District disrespect the boundaries of political subdivisions. Of the 22 counties in the District, 14 are intact and 8 are divided. See Joint Exh. 17. That puts the Eleventh District at about the state average in divided counties. By contrast, of the Sixth  Jp District's 5 counties, none are intact, ibid., and of the  JH Fourth District's 4 counties, just 1 is intact. Ibid.soH m  uB ԍ FTN    XgEpXFr  ddf < The First District has 20 intact counties and parts of 2 others. The Second District has 23 intact counties and parts of 12 others.The Third District has 8 intact counties and parts of 8others.The Fifth District is composed of parts of 4 counties. TheSeventh District has 10 intact counties and part of 1 county. The Eighth District has 22 intact counties and parts of 10 others.The Ninth District has 19 intact counties and part of 1 other. The Tenth District has 16 intact counties and parts of 3 others. See Joint Exh. 17.s Seventyone percent of the Eleventh District's boundaries track the borders of political subdivisions. See 864 F.Supp., at 1396 (Edmondson, J., dissenting). Of the State's 11 districts, 5 score worse than the Eleventh District on this criterion, and 5 score better. See "    J Defendant's Exh. 177, p. 4.% uBh ԍ FTN    XgEpXFr  ddf < The Sixth District scores lowest, with just 45 percent of its boundaries following political subdivision lines. The Ninth District rates highest, with 91 percent. Defendant's Exh. 177, p. 3. Eightythree percent of the Eleventh District's geographic area is composed of intact counties, above average for the State's congressional districts. 864 F.Supp., at 1396 (Edmondson, J., dissent J` ing).` uB ԍ FTN    XgEpXFr  ddf < On this measure, only 3 districts"the First, Seventh, and Ninth"rate higher than the Eleventh District. Excluding the Fifth and Sixth Districts, which contain no intact counties, the scores range from about 30 percent for the Fourth District to 97 percent for the Seventh District. Defendant's Exh. 177, p. 4. And notably, the Eleventh District's boundaries  J8 largely follow precinct lines.o8H uBX ԍ FTN    XgEpXFr  ddf < The Court turns the significance of this fact on its head by stating:   ! `While the boundaries of the Eleventh do indeed follow many precinct lines, this is because Ms. Meggers designed the Eleventh District along racial lines, and race data was most accessi uB4 ble to her at the precinct level.' c!  Ante, at 18 (quoting 864 F.Supp., at 1384). To this curious comment, one can only demur. Yes, Georgia's plan considered race, but by following precinct lines, it did  uBY so in an altogether proper way, i.e., without disregarding traditional districting practices.  Evidence at trial similarly shows that considerations other than race went into determining the Eleventh District's boundaries. For a political reason"to accommodate the request of an incumbent State Senator regarding the placement of the precinct in which his son lived"the DeKalb County portion of the Eleventh District was drawn to include a particular (largely white) precinct. 2 Tr. 187, 202. The corridor through Effingham County was substantially narrowed at the request of a (white) State Representative. 2 Tr. 189!190, 212!214. In Chatham County, the District was trimmed to exclude a heavily black community in Garden City because a State Representative wanted to keep the city intact inside the neighboring First District. 2 Tr. 218!219. The Savannah extension was configured "   by the narrowest means possible to avoid splitting the city of Port Wentworth. 4 Tr. 172!174, 175!178, 181!183.  Georgia's Eleventh District, in sum, is not an outlier district shaped without reference to familiar districting techniques. Tellingly, the District that the Court's decision today unsettles is not among those on a statistically calculated list of the 28 most bizarre districts in the United States, a study prepared in the  J wake of our decision in Shaw. See Pildes & Niemi, 92 Mich. L. Rev., at 565.  ;H2 d d-C؃  2  The Court suggests that it was not Georgia's legislature, but the U.S. Department of Justice, that effectively drew the lines, and that Department officers did so with nothing but race in mind. Yet the MaxBlack plan advanced by the Attorney General was not the plan  J passed by the Georgia General Assembly.:  uBV ԍ FTN    XgEpXFr  ddf < Appendices A, B, and C to this opinion depict, respectively, the proposed Eleventh District under the MaxBlack plan, Georgia's current congressional districts, and the district in controversy in  uB{ Shaw.: See 864 F.Supp., at 1396!1397, n. 5 (Edmondson, J., dissenting) ( The MaxBlack plan did influence to some degree the shape of the ultimate Eleventh District .... [But] the  JN actual Eleventh is not identical to the MaxBlack plan. The Eleventh, to my eye, is significantly different in shape in many ways. These differences show ...  J consideration of other matters beyond race ....). l uB ԍ FTN  &  XgEpXFr  ddf < Indeed, a key feature, ante, at 5, of the MaxBlack plan"placing parts of Savannah in the Eleventh District"first figured in a proposal adopted by Georgia's Senate even before the  uB? Attorney General suggested this course. 864 F.Supp., at 1394, n. 1 (Edmondson, J., dissenting).  And although the Attorney General refused preclearance to the first two plans approved by Georgia's  "   legislature, the State was not thereby disarmed; Georgia could have demanded relief from the Department's objections by instituting a civil action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, with ultimate review in this Court. Instead of pursuing that avenue, the State chose to adopt the plan here in controversy"a plan the State forcefully defends before us. We should respect Georgia's choice by taking its position on brief as genuine.  ;H2 d d-D؃  2  Along with attention to size, shape, and political subdivisions, the Court recognizes as an appropriate districting principle, respect for ... communities  J defined by actual shared interests. Ante, at 15. The Court finds no community here, however, because a report in the record showed fractured political, social, and economic interests within the Eleventh District's  J black population. Ante, at 18.  But ethnicity itself can tie people together, as volumes of social science literature have documented"even people with divergent economic interests. For this reason, ethnicity is a significant force in political life. As stated in a classic study of ethnicity in one city of immigrants: BQ C  , , (  [M]any elements"history, family and feeling, interest, formal organizational life"operate to keep much of New York life channeled within the bounds of the ethnic group.... N N  ... The political realm ... is least willing to consider [ethnicity] a purely private affair.... {<5 EllipsisXgEpX @d !.).0.''7.KK>.!/}{;5 Ellipsis!X @d XgEp N N  [P]olitical life itself emphasizes the ethnic character of the city, with its balanced tickets and its special appeals .... N.Glazer & D. Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot 19!20 (1963).{BQ d   J  ( , , See also, e.g., E. Litt, Beyond Pluralism: Ethnic Politics "   in America 2 (1970) ( [E]thnic forces play a surprisingly persistent role in our politics.); Ethnic Group Politics, Preface ix (H. Bailey & E. Katz eds. 1969) ( [E]thnic identifications do exist and ...one cannot really understand the American political process without giving special attention to racial, religious and national minorities.).  To accommodate the reality of ethnic bonds, legislatures have long drawn voting districts along ethnic lines. Our Nation's cities are full of districts identified by their ethnic character"Chinese, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish,  JH Russian, for example. See, e.g., S. Erie, Rainbow's End: IrishAmericans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840!1985, p. 91 (1988) (describing Jersey City's Horseshoe district as lumping most of the city's Irish together); Coveted Landmarks Add a Twist to Redistricting Task, L.A. Times, Sept. 10, 1991, pp. A1, A24 ( In San Francisco in 1961, ... an Irish Catholic [State Assembly member] `wanted his district drawn following [Catholic] parish lines so all the parishes where he went to baptisms, weddings and funerals would be in his district' ....); Stone, Goode: Bad and Indifferent, Washington Monthly, JulyAugust 1986, pp. 27, 28 (discussing The Law of Ethnic Loyalty" ... a universal law of politics, and identifying predominantly Italian wards of South Philadelphia, a Jewish Los Angeles district, and a Polish district in Chicago). The creation of ethnic districts reflecting felt identity is not ordinarily viewed as offensive or demeaning to those included in the delineation.-  9H1 d dy,III؃  2  To separate permissible and impermissible use of race in legislative apportionment, the Court orders strict scrutiny for districting plans predominantly motivated by race. No longer can a State avoid judicial oversight by giving"as in this case"genuine and measurable "   consideration to traditional districting practices. Instead, a federal case can be mounted whenever plaintiffs plausibly allege that other factors carried less weight than race. This invitation to litigate against the State seems to me neither necessary nor proper.  ;H2 d d-A؃  t2  The Court derives its test from diverse opinions on the relevance of race in contexts distinctly unlike apportion JV ment. See ante, at 9!10. rnV uB ԍ FTN  &  XgEpXFr  ddf < I would follow precedent directly on point. In United Jewish  uBu Organizations of Williamsburgh, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U.S. 144 (1977)  uB, (UJO), even though the State deliberately used race in a purposeful  uB manner to create majorityminority districts, id., at 165 (opinion of  uB White, J., joined by Rehnquist and Stevens, JJ.), seven of eight Justices participating voted to uphold the State's plan without subjecting it to strict scrutiny. Five Justices specifically agreed that the intentional creation of majorityminority districts does not give rise to an equal protection claim, absent proof that the districting  uB- diluted the majority's voting strength. See ibid. (opinion of White,  uB J., joined by Rehnquist and Stevens, JJ.); id., at 179!180 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment, joined by Powell, J.).  uBR  Nor is UJO best understood as a vote dilution case. Petitioners'  uB  claim in UJO was that the State had violated the Fourteenth and  uB Fifteenth Amendments by deliberately revising its reapportionment  uBw plan along racial lines. 430 U.S., at 155 (opinion of White, J.,  uB. joined by Brennan, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ.) (emphasis added). Petitioners themselves stated:  D! `Our argument is ... that the history of the area demonstrates that there could be"and in fact  uBS was"no reason other than race to divide the community at this  uB  time.'  !  Id., at 154, n. 14 (quoting Brief for Petitioners, O.T. 1976, No. 75!104, p. 6, n. 6) (emphasis in Brief for Petitioners).  uBx  Though much like the claim in Shaw, the UJO claim failed  uB/ because the UJO district adhered to traditional districting practices.  uB See 430 U.S., at 168 (opinion of White, J., joined by Rehnquist  uB and Stevens, JJ.) ( [W]e think it ... permissible for a State,  uBT employing sound districting principles such as compactness and  uB  population equality, ... [to] creat[e] districts that will afford fair representation to the members of those racial groups who are  uBy sufficiently numerous and whose residential patterns afford they "##  uB opportunity of creating districts in which they will be in the majority.) (emphasis added). The controlling idea, theV "   Court says, is   `the simple command [at the heart of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection] that the Government must treat citizens as individuals, not as simply components of a racial, religious, sexual or  J` national class.' R  See ante, at 9 (quoting Metro Broad J8 casting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547, 602 (1990)  J Ԛ(O'Connor, J. dissenting)) (some internal quotation  J marks omitted). But cf. Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 307 (1880) (pervading purpose of postCivil War Amendments was to bar discrimination against onceenslaved race).  In adopting districting plans, however, States do not treat people as individuals. Apportionment schemes, by their very nature, assemble people in groups. States do not assign voters to districts based on merit or achievement, standards States might use in hiring employees or engaging contractors. Rather, legislators classify voters in groups"by economic, geographical, political, or social characteristics"and then reconcile the competing claims  J of [these] groups. Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109,  J 147 (1986) (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment).  That ethnicity defines some of these groups is a  J political reality. See supra, at 12!13. Until now, no constitutional infirmity has been seen in districting Irish or Italian voters together, for example, so long as the delineation does not abandon familiar apportionment  J practices. See supra, at 8!11. If ChineseAmericans and RussianAmericans may seek and secure group recognition in the delineation of voting districts, then AfricanAmericans should not be dissimilarly treated. Otherwise, in the name of equal protection, we would shut out the very minority group whose history in the United States gave birth to the Equal Protection "    J Clause. See Shaw, 509 U.S., at ___ (slip op., at 4)  J (Stevens, J., dissenting).  uB@ ԍRaceconscious practices a State may elect to pursue, of course, are  uB not as limited as those it may be required to pursue. See Voinovich v.  uB Quilter, 507 U.S. ___, ___ (1993) (slip op., at __) ( [F]ederal courts may not order the creation of majorityminority districts unless necessary to remedy a violation of federal law. But that does not mean that the State's powers are similarly limited. Quite the opposite is true ....) (citation omitted).  ;H2 d d-B؃  2  Under the Court's approach, judicial review of the  J same intensity, i.e., strict scrutiny, is in order once it is determined that an apportionment is predominantly motivated by race. It matters not at all, in this new regime, whether the apportionment dilutes or enhances minority voting strength. As very recently observed, however, [t]here is no moral or constitutional equivalence between a policy that is designed to perpetuate a caste system and one that seeks to eradicate racial  J subordination. Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pe9a,  J ante, at ___ (slip op., at 2) (Stevens, J., dissenting).  Special circumstances justify vigilant judicial inspection to protect minority voters"circumstances that do not apply to majority voters. A history of exclusion from state politics left racial minorities without clout to extract provisions for fair representation in the lawmak J ing forum. See supra, at 4!6. The equal protection rights of minority voters thus could have remained unrealized absent the Judiciary's close surveillance. Cf.  J& United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144, 153, n. 4 (1938) (referring to the more searching judicial inquiry that may properly attend classifications adversely affecting discrete and insular minorities). The majority, by definition, encounters no such blockage. White voters in Georgia do not lack means to exert strong pressure on their state legislators. The force of6 "   their numbers is itself a powerful determiner of what the legislature will do that does not coincide with perceived majority interests.  State legislatures like Georgia's today operate under federal constraints imposed by the Voting Rights Act"constraints justified by history and designed by Congress to make oncesubordinated people free and equal citizens. But these federal constraints do not leave majority voters in need of extraordinary judicial solicitude. The Attorney General, who administers the Voting Rights Act's preclearance requirements, is herself a political actor. She has a duty to enforce the law Congress passed, and she is no doubt aware of the political cost of venturing too far to the detriment of majority voters. Majority voters, furthermore, can press the State to seek judicial review if the Attorney General refuses to preclear a plan that the voters favor. Finally, the Act is itself a political measure, subject to modification in the political process.  ;H2 d d-C؃  D2  The Court's disposition renders redistricting perilous work for state legislatures. Statutory mandates and political realities may require States to consider race  J when drawing district lines. See supra, at 2!3. But today's decision is a counterforce; it opens the way for federal litigation if traditional ... districting principles  J arguably were accorded less weight than race. See ante, at 15. Genuine attention to traditional districting practices and avoidance of bizarre configurations seemed,  J under Shaw, to provide a safe harbor. See 509 U.S., at ___ (slip op., at 15) ( [T]raditional districting principles such as compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions ... are objective factors that may serve to defeat a claim that a district has been gerrymandered on racial lines.). In view of today's decision, that is no longer the case. "  Ԍ Only after litigation"under either the Voting Rights  J Act, the Court's new Miller standard, or both"will States now be assured that plans conscious of race are safe. Federal judges in large numbers may be drawn into the fray. This enlargement of the judicial role is unwarranted. The reapportionment plan that resulted from Georgia's political process merited this Court's approbation, not its condemnation. Accordingly, I dissent. "[MAPS FOLLOW THIS PAGE]