1040
Stevens, J., dissenting
it is those that were twisted to exclude, not those altered to include.36
VII
The history of race relations in Texas and throughout the South demonstrates overt evidence of discriminatory voting practices lasting through the 1970's. Brischetto, Richards, Davidson, & Grofman, Texas, in Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990, pp. 233-248 (C. Davidson & B. Grofman eds. 1994). Even in recent years, Texans have elected only two black candidates to statewide office; majority-white Texas districts have never elected a minority to either the State Senate or the United States Congress. Brief for Appellants in No. 94- 806, p. 53. One recent study suggests that majority-white districts throughout the South remain suspiciously unlikely
36 My view that a State may act unconstitutionally by gerrymandering to minimize the influence of a group on the political process is consistent with the belief that there is no constitutional error in the drawing of district lines based on benign racial considerations. As Justice Powell noted in his opinion in Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S., at 165, there is a sharp distinction between "gerrymandering in the 'loose' sense" (i. e., the drawing of district lines to advance general political and social goals), and "gerrymandering that amounts to unconstitutional discrimination" (i. e., the drawing of district lines for the sole purpose of " 'occupy[ing] a position of strength at a particular time, or to disadvantage a politically weak segment of the community,' " id., at 164 (citing Karcher, 462 U. S., at 748 (Stevens, J., concurring)). See also 478 U. S., at 125, n. 9 ("[A] preference for nonpartisan as opposed to partisan gerrymanders . . . merely recognizes that nonpartisan gerrymanders in fact are aimed at guaranteeing rather than infringing fair group representation"). While I believe that allegations of discriminatory intent and impact, if proved, should give rise to a constitutional violation, Shaw, Miller, and these cases all involve allegations of both impact and intent that are far more diffuse than the allegations to which we have traditionally directed our most rigorous review. See Shaw II, ante, at 921-923 (Stevens, J., dissenting); cf. Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960). Limiting the constitutional ban on gerry-mandering to those claims alleging that a specific group (as opposed to every group) has been harmed would be far more consistent with prior precedent than the Court's still-developing jurisprudence of racial gerrymandering.
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