938
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
portionment plans do not dilute minority voting strength. See, e. g., Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 617 (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 three-judge 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-minority district.1 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 nigger districts.' " Busbee v. Smith, 549 F. Supp. 494, 501 (DC 1982).
II
A
Before Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630 (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-person-one-vote requirement, see Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964); and
1 Georgia's population is approximately 27 percent black. 864 F. Supp. 1354, 1385 (SD Ga. 1994).
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