Cite as: 517 U. S. 952 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
to suggest, however, that an effort to "segregate" voters drove District 30 to collect those populations. After all, even the District Court noted that African-American voters immediately adjacent to the core of District 30 were intentionally excluded from the district "in order to protect incumbents." 861 F. Supp., at 1339 (emphasis added). Forced into Republican territory to collect Democratic votes, the district intentionally picked up some minority communities (though far more majority-white communities). If it had not, the goal of creating a majority-black district would have been sacrificed to incumbency protection (the very sort of "predominance" of race over race-neutral factors that the plurality discredits). But unlike Georgia's District 11 and North Carolina's District 12, the reason that the district was there in the first place was not to collect minority communities, but to collect population—preferably Democrats. It would, therefore, be fanciful to assert that the "several appendages" to District 30 were "drawn for the obvious," let alone the predominant, "purpose of putting black populations into the district." Miller, 515 U. S., at 910.22
In sum, a fair analysis of the shape of District 30, like the equally bizarre shape of District 6, belies the notion that its shape was determined by racial considerations.
22 Indeed, if the "appendages" to District 30 reaching into neighboring counties were cut off, the proportion of African-Americans in the resulting district would actually increase. See App. 331. As presently constituted, District 30 includes 566,217 people, of which 283,225 (or 50.02%) are African-American. If the Tarrant County and Collin County portions of the district were removed, the resulting district would have 557,218 people, of which 280,620 (or 50.36%) would be African-American. While the resulting district would not include the "zero deviation" necessary under Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964), and its progeny, see n. 10, supra, the missing population could easily be acquired in majority-black census blocks adjacent to District 30's southern and eastern edge, thereby increasing the proportion of black population still further. Because the alleged racial goals of the district could be achieved more effectively by making the district more compact, I simply do not comprehend how the plurality can conclude that the effort to create a majority-minority district "predominated" over other, race-neutral goals.
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