A. Thernstrom, Whose Votes Count? The food stamps cannot be used to buy wine. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469, 493-495 (1989) (plurality opinion of O'CONNOR, J., joined by REHNQUIST, C. J., and WHITE and KENNEDY, JJ.) Argued April 20, 1993-Decided June 28,1993. Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp.(1977). Section 2 also provides that a violation of that prohibition "is established if, based on the totality of circumstances, it is shown that the political processes leading to nomination or election are not equally open to participation by members of a [protected] class in that its members have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." Id., at 179 (opinion concurring in judgment) (some citations omitted). Written and curated by real attorneys at Quimbee. The State chose to submit its plan to the Attorney General for preclearance. Id., at 179 (Stewart, J., concurring in judgment). US attorney general rejected a North Carolina congressional reappointment plan because the plan created only one black majority district, 1. Appellee Reno . Redistricting legislation that is alleged to be so bizarre on its face that it is unexplainable on grounds other than race demands the same close scrutiny, regardless of the motivations underlying its adoption. But it soon became apparent that guaranteeing equal access to the polls would not suffice to root out other racially discriminatory voting practices. taker's concurrence appears to be premised on the notion that black citizens were being "fenc[ed] out" of municipal benefits. Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions; it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters--a goal that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments embody, and to which the Nation continues to aspire. a majority-minority district does not unfairly minimize the voting power of any other group, the Constitution does not justify, much less mandate, such obstruction. To that end, however, there must be an allegation of discriminatory purpose and effect, for the constitutionality of a race-conscious redistricting plan. of Gal. Legislation that classifies a person or group of people solely based on their race is, by its nature, a threat to a system that strives to achieve equality, the majority opined. 1237, 1258 (1993). (b) Classifications of citizens based solely on race are by their nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality, because they threaten to stigmatize persons by reason of their membership in a racial group and to incite racial hostility. The company raises all equity from outside financing. That concession is wise: This Court never has held that race-conscious state decisionmaking is impermissible in all circumstances. R. Dixon, Democratic Representation: Reapportionment in Law and Politics 459 (1968). See post, at 684 (dissenting opinion). v. RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al. Forty of North Carolina's one hundred counties are covered by 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U. S. C. 1973c, which prohibits a jurisdiction subject to its provisions from implementing changes in a "standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting" without federal authorization, ibid. Nor if dilution is proven is there any need for further constitutional scrutiny; there has never been a suggestion that such use of race could be justified under any type of scrutiny, since the dilution of the right to vote can not be said to serve any legitimate governmental purpose. They alleged that the General Assembly deliberately "create[d] two Congressional Districts in which a majority of black voters was concentrated arbitrarily--without regard to any other considerations, such as compactness, contiguousness, geographical boundaries, or political subdivisions" with the purpose "to create Congressional Districts along racial lines" and to assure the election of two black representatives to Congress. "The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society."Reynolds v. Sims[1964]. The plaintiffs alleged that the plan was drawn with the intent to segregate voters on the basis of race, in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. indicator that some form of gerrymandering (racial or other) might have taken place and that "something may be amiss." It is ironic that it does so when white voters challenge a law that would have North Carolina send a black representative to Congress for the first time since Reconstruction, here is no constitutional requirement of compactness or contiguity for districts. See ante, at 642, 649, 652, 657-658. Because the General Assembly's reapportionment plan affected the covered counties, the parties agree that 5 applied. Laws that explicitly distinguish between individuals on racial grounds fall within the core of that prohibition. The jurisdiction must obtain either a judgment from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia declaring that the proposed change "does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color" or administrative preclearance from the Attorney General. a law designed to help end formal and informal barriers to African-American suffrage, Court case that ruled that district lines may not dilute minority representation, but neither may they be drawn with race as the predominant consideration, 5 white voters, it was motivated by race and violated 14th amendment, Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws, U.S. cannot prevent a person from voting because of race, color, or creed, racial gerrymandering-ordinance declared unconstitutional, -constitution prohibits using race as the main reason for how to draw districts, -using race in redistricting is as important of it being continuous, Criminal Justice Unit 1 Exam--STUDY GUIDE, Christina Dejong, Christopher E. Smith, George F Cole, Government in America: Elections and Updates Edition, George C. Edwards III, Martin P. Wattenberg, Robert L. Lineberry, Chapter 1: The Role of a Diversity Practition. Pp. 75-104, p. 6, n. 6) (emphasis in original). )-forecloses the claim we recognize today. The majority attempts to distinguish UJO by imagining a heretofore unknown type of constitutional claim. " In Shaw v. Reno (1993), the Court ruled that electoral districts whose boundaries cannot be explained except on the basis of race can be challenged as potential violations of the equal protection clause, and in Miller v. Johnson (1995) it held that the equal protection clause Read More opinion of O'Connor In Sandra Day O'Connor In short, even assuming that racial (or political) factors were considered in the drawing of district boundaries, a showing of discriminatory effects is a "threshold requirement" in the absence of which there is no equal protection violation, id., at 143, and no need to "reach the question of the state interests served by the particular districts," id., at 142.4, To distinguish a claim that alleges that the redistricting scheme has discriminatory intent and effect from one that does not has nothing to do with dividing racial classifications between the "benign" and the malicious-an enterprise which, as the majority notes, the Court has treated with skepticism. I read these decisions quite differently. Centered in the northeast portion of the State, it moves southward until it tapers to a narrow band; then, with finger-like extensions, it reaches far into the southernmost part of the State near the South Carolina border. The largest concentrations of black citizens live in the Coastal Plain, primarily in the northern part. 808 F. Richmond v. J. -dividing voters into districts bc of race is segregation. This Court's subsequent reliance on Gomillion in other Fourteenth Amendment cases suggests the correctness of Justice Whittaker's view. (Assume there is no difference between the pretax and aftertax accounts payable cost.). of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 277-278 (plurality opinion). Allen v. State Board of Elections(1969) (emphasis added). It is particularly ironic that the case in which today's majority chooses to abandon settled law and to recognize for the first time this "analytically distinct" constitutional claim, ante, at 652, is a challenge by white voters to the plan under which North Carolina has sent black representatives to Congress for the first time since Reconstruction. Majority Opinion/Decision. Indeed, the Voting Rights Act and our case law make clear that a reapportionment plan that satisfies 5 still may be enjoined as unconstitutional. They reinforce the belief, held by too many for too much of our history, that individuals should be judged by the color of their skin. Id., at 472-473. We noted probable jurisdiction. no further than the Voting Rights Act to understand that this may be required, and we have held that race may constitutionally be taken into account in order to comply with that Act. That argument strikes a powerful historical chord: It is unsettling how closely the North Carolina plan resembles the most egregious racial gerrymanders of the past. More generally, we remarked: "The mere fact that one interest group or another concerned with the outcome of [the district's] elections has found itself outvoted and without legislative seats of its. v. Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, 304-305 (1978) (Powell, J.) It also will be true where the minority population is not scattered but, for reasons unrelated to racefor example incumbency protection-the State would rather not create the majority-minority district in its most "obvious" location.10 When, as is the case here, the creation of. The new district stretches approximately 160 miles along Interstate 85 and, for much of its length, is no wider than the 1-85 corridor. Another of the weapons in the States' arsenal was the racial gerrymander-"the deliberate and arbitrary distortion of district boundaries for [racial] purposes." Id., at 349. Tr. The dissenters make two other arguments that cannot be reconciled with our precedents. Since the holding here makes it unnecessary to decide whether or how a reapportionment plan that, on its face, can be explained in nonracial terms successfully could be challenged, the Court expresses no view on whether the intentional creation of majorityminority districts, without more, always gives rise to an equal protection claim. Our conclusion is supported by the plurality opinion in UJO, in which four Justices determined that New York's creation of additional majority-minority districts was constitutional because the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that the State "did more than the Attorney General was authorized to require it to do under the nonretrogression principle of Beer." It is for these reasons that race-based districting by our state legislatures demands close judicial scrutiny. But while district irregularities may provide strong indicia of a potential gerrymander, they do no more than that. against anyone by denying equal access to the political process. So, too, would be a case in which a State concentrated a dispersed minority population in a single district by disregarding traditional districting principles such as compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions. See 478 U. S., at 131, n. 12 (plurality opinion). Until today, the Court has analyzed equal protection claims involving race in electoral districting differently from equal protection claims involving other forms of governmental conduct, and before turning to the different regimes of analysis it will be useful to set out the relevant respects in which such districting differs from the characteristic circumstances in which a State might otherwise consciously consider race. As we explained in Feeney: "A racial classification, regardless of purported motivation, is presumptively invalid and can be upheld only. In the lower court record, the district was said to resemble a Rorschach ink-blot test, and theWall Street Journalclaimed the district looked like a "bug splattered on a windshield." 8While the Court "express[es] no view as to whether 'the intentional creation of majority-minority districts, without more,' always gives rise to an equal protection claim," ante, at 649 (quoting ante, at 668 (WHITE, J., dissenting)), it repeatedly emphasizes that there is some reason to believe that a configuration devised with reference to traditional districting principles would present a case falling outside the cause of action recognized today. The Justices disagreed only as to whether the plaintiffs had carried their burden of proof at trial. See, e. g., Croson, 488 U. S., at 491-493 (opinion of O'CONNOR, J., joined by REHNQUIST, C. J., and WHITE, J. Though they might be dissatisfied at the prospect of casting a vote for a losing candidate-a lot shared by many, including a disproportionate number of minor-, its black citizens with respect to their exercise of the voting franchise from approximately 1900 to 1970 by employing a poll tax [and] a literacy test. Appellants, five North Carolina residents, filed this action against appellee state and federal officials, claiming that the State had created an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in violation of, among other things, the Fourteenth Amendment. That racial bloc voting or minority political cohesion may be found to exist in some cases, of course, is no reason to treat all racial gerrymanders differently from other kinds of racial classification. Today, the Court recognizes a new cause of action under which a State's electoral redistricting plan that includes a configuration "so bizarre," ante, at 644, that it "rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to separate voters into different districts on the basis of race [without] sufficient justification," ante, at 649, will be subjected to strict scrutiny. Even Justice Whit-. In that regard, it closely resembles the present case. These lawmakers are quite aware that the districts they create will have a white or a black majority; and with each new district comes the unavoidable choice as to the racial composition of the district." Shaw v Hunt. Shaw v. Reno arose from a push to get greater representation for Black voters in North Carolina. Unlike other contexts in which we have addressed the State's conscious use of race, see, e. g., Richmond v. J. 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