1028
Stevens, J., dissenting
have selected the people." 861 F. Supp., at 1334 (citations and footnotes omitted).
See also id., at 1335, n. 43. Despite this overwhelming evidence that incumbency protection was the critical motivating factor in the creation of the bizarre Texas districts, the District Court reached the stunning conclusion that because the process was so "different in degree" from the "generalized, and legitimate, goal of incumbent and seniority protection" that this Court has previously recognized, it could not serve as a legitimate explanation for the bizarre boundaries of the congressional districts. Id., at 1334-1335. In dismissing incumbency protection once and for all, the District Court stated that "[i]ncumbent protection is a valid state interest only to the extent that it is not a pretext for unconstitutional racial gerrymandering." Id., at 1336.
It is difficult to know where to begin to attack the misperceptions reflected in these conclusions,26 and the plurality's failure to do so seriously taints its evaluation of the relative importance of nonracial considerations in the creation of District 30. The initial problem, of course, is that under the Court's threshold test as set forth in Miller, one must consider the role of incumbency protection before determining whether there is an "unconstitutional racial gerrymander." And because the ultimate focus in these gerrymandering cases is the claim that race was the "dominant and controlling rationale in drawing [the] district lines," 515 U. S., at 913, a court must, in applying that test, consider a State's claim that a given race-neutral rationale controlled the creation of those lines. See id., at 916 ("Where [compactness, contiguity,] or other race-neutral considerations are the basis for redistricting legislation, and are not subordinated to race, a State can 'defeat a claim that a district has been
26 The District Court's legal analysis was probably flawed in part because its decision was issued before this Court announced its opinion in Miller.
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