1054
Souter, J., dissenting
ing Election-District Appearances after Shaw v. Reno, 92 Mich. L. Rev. 483, 506-507 (1993); see also id., at 493 ("The theory of voting rights [that Shaw I] endorses centers on the perceived legitimacy of structures of political representation, rather than on the distribution of actual political power between racial or political groups"). To the extent that racial considerations do express such notions, their shadows fall on majorities as well as minorities, whites as well as blacks, the politically dominant as well as the politically impotent. Thus, as an injury supposed to be barred by the Equal Protection Clause, this subject of the "analytically distinct" cause of action created by Shaw I, supra, at 652, bears virtually no resemblance to the only types of claims for gerry-mandering we had deemed actionable following Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109 (1986), those involving districting decisions that removed an identifiable class of disfavored voters from effective political participation. See, e. g., Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960); Thornburg v. Gingles, supra.6
Just as the logic of traditional equal protection analysis is at odds with Shaw's concept of injury, so the Court's rhetoric of racially motivated injury is inapposite to describe the consideration of race that it thinks unreasonable. Although the Court used the metaphor of "political apartheid" as if to refer to the segregation of a minority group to eliminate its association with a majority that opposed integration, Shaw I, supra, at 647, talk of this sort of racial separation is not on point here. The de jure segregation that the term "political
6 Leaving aside the question whether such a catholic injury can be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, there still might be a use of race that harms all district voters because it is used to an unreasonable degree. But see Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 489 (1982). But the Court has never succeeded in identifying how much is too much, having adopted a "predominant purpose" test that amounts to a practical repudiation of any hope of devising a workable standard. See Part I-C, infra.
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