Cite as: 517 U. S. 952 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
decisions today. As we have previously noted, "[e]lectoral districting is a most difficult subject for legislatures, and so the States must have discretion to exercise the political judgment necessary to balance competing interests." Miller, 515 U. S., at 915; see also post, at 1047-1048 (Souter, J., dissenting). The record in these cases evidences the "complex interplay of forces that enter a legislature's redistricting calculus," 515 U. S., at 915-916, and the Court's failure to respect those forces demonstrates even less respect for the legislative process than I would have expected after the decision in Miller.
The results are not inconsequential. After Miller and today's decisions, States may find it extremely difficult to avoid litigation flowing from decennial redistricting. On one hand, States will risk violating the Voting Rights Act if they fail to create majority-minority districts. If they create those districts, however, they may open themselves to liability under Shaw and its progeny. See Miller, 515 U. S., at 949 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Perhaps States will simply avoid the problem by abandoning voluntary compliance with § 2 of the Voting Rights Act altogether. See Shaw I, 509 U. S., at 672 (White, J., dissenting); post, at 1063-1064 (Souter, J., dissenting).34 This result would not necessarily bring peace to redistricting, for there is no guarantee that districts created by court order to comply with § 2 will be immune from attack under Shaw; in both Florida and Illinois, for instance, that very sort of schizophrenic second-guessing has already occurred. See King v. State Bd. of Elections,
34 The difficulty of balancing between these competing legal requirements will only be exacerbated by the ability of litigants (and courts) to use evidence proffered in defense by the State or its actors in one context as evidence against the State in another. See n. 24, supra. While there is nothing wrong with using prior inconsistent statements (to the extent that they really are inconsistent), States will be all the more unwilling to enter into the process at all given the certainty that they will be subject to suits in which evidence offered in one as defense will be fodder for the plaintiffs in another.
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