Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 71 (1994)

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944

HOLDER v. HALL

Thomas, J., concurring in judgment

drive for proportionality that animates our decisions. As actions such as that brought in Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630 (1993), have already started to show, what might euphemistically be termed the benign "creation of majority-minority single-member districts to enhance the opportunity of minority groups to elect representatives of their choice" might also more simply and more truthfully be termed "racial gerry-mandering." Similarly, what we might call a "totality of circumstances" test to determine whether an electoral practice "interacts with social and historical conditions to cause an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by black and white voters to elect their preferred representatives," Gingles, 478 U. S., at 47, might more accurately be called a test for ensuring proportional electoral results according to race. Cf. id., at 97 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment).

In my view, our current practice should not continue. Not for another Term, not until the next case, not for another day. The disastrous implications of the policies we have adopted under the Act are too grave; the dissembling in our approach to the Act too damaging to the credibility of the Federal Judiciary. The "inherent tension"—indeed, I would call it an irreconcilable conflict—between the standards we have adopted for evaluating vote dilution claims and the text of the Voting Rights Act would itself be sufficient in my view to warrant overruling the interpretation of § 2 set out in Gingles. When that obvious conflict is combined with the destructive effects our expansive reading of the Act has had in involving the Federal Judiciary in the project of dividing the Nation into racially segregated electoral districts, I can see no reasonable alternative to abandoning our current unfortunate understanding of the Act.

Stare decisis is a powerful concern, especially in the field of statutory construction. See Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 172 (1989). See also Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U. S. 517, 538-539 (1994) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment). But "we have never applied stare decisis

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