1046
Souter, J., dissenting
setting district boundaries from the state legislatures, which are invested with front-line authority by Article I of the Constitution, to the courts, and truly to this Court, which is left to superintend the drawing of every legislative district in the land.
Today's opinions do little to solve Shaw's puzzles or return districting responsibility to the States. To say this is not to denigrate the importance of Justice O'Connor's position in her separate opinion, ante, at 990-992, that compliance with § 2 of the Voting Rights Act is a compelling state interest; her statement takes a very significant step toward alleviating apprehension that Shaw is at odds with the Voting Rights Act. It is still true, however, that the combined plurality, minority, and Court opinions do not ultimately leave the law dealing with a Shaw claim appreciably clearer or more manageable than Shaw I itself did. And to the extent that some clarity follows from the knowledge that race may be considered when reasonably necessary to conform to the Voting Rights Act, today's opinions raise the specter that this ostensible progress may come with a heavy constitutional price. The price of Shaw I, indeed, may turn out to be the practical elimination of a State's discretion to apply traditional districting principles, widely accepted in States without racial districting issues as well as in States confronting them.
As the flaws of Shaw I persist, and as the burdens placed on the States and the courts by Shaw litigation loom larger with the approach of a new census and a new round of redistricting, the Court has to recognize that Shaw's problems result from a basic misconception about the relation between race and districting principles, a mistake that no amount of case-by-case tinkering can eliminate. There is, therefore, no reason for confidence that the Court will eventually bring much order out of the confusion created by Shaw I, and because it has not, in any case, done so yet, I respectfully dissent.
Page: Index Previous 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007