936
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
A
"We say once again what has been said on many occasions: reapportionment is primarily the duty and responsibility of the State through its legislature or other body, rather than of a federal court." Chapman v. Meier, 420 U. S. 1, 27 (1975); see also ante, at 915. The Constitution itself allocates this responsibility to States. U. S. Const., Art. I, § 2; Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 34 (1993).
"Districting inevitably has sharp political impact and inevitably political decisions must be made by those charged with the task." White v. Weiser, 412 U. S. 783, 795-796 (1973). District lines are drawn to accommodate a myriad of factors—geographic, economic, historical, and political—and state legislatures, as arenas of compromise and electoral accountability, are best positioned to mediate competing claims; courts, with a mandate to adjudicate, are ill equipped for the task.
B
Federal courts have ventured into the political thicket of apportionment when necessary to secure to members of racial minorities equal voting rights—rights denied in many States, including Georgia, until not long ago.
The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, declares that the right to vote "shall not be denied . . . by any State on account of race." That declaration, for generations, was often honored in the breach; it was greeted by a near century of "unremitting and ingenious defiance" in several States, including Georgia. South Carolina v. 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.' " McDonald, Binford, & Johnson, Georgia, in Quiet Revolution in the South 68 (C. David-
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