Cite as: 517 U. S. 952 (1996)
Souter, J., dissenting
dominate in importance over racial consideration. That is, the Court would be reducing the discretion of a State seeking to avoid or correct dilution to the scope of a federal court's discretion when devising a remedy for dilution. There could, of course, be no justification for taking any such step. While there is good reason to limit a federal court's discretion to interfere in a State's political process when it employs its remedial power in dilution cases, cf. Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S., at 156 ("Federal courts are barred from intervening in state apportionment in the absence of a violation of federal law precisely because it is the domain of the States . . . to conduct apportionment"), there is no apparent reason to impose the same limitations upon the discretion accorded to a State subject to an independent constitutional duty to make apportionment decisions, see ibid. ("Because the States . . . derive their reapportionment authority . . . from independent provisions of state and federal law, . . . the federal courts are bound to respect the States' apportionment choices unless those choices contravene federal requirements") (internal quotation marks omitted). The principles of federalism that we have tried to follow strongly counsel against imposing any such limitations.
D
In sum, the three steps the Court takes today toward a more definite cause of action either fail to answer the objections to Shaw I or prompt objections of their own. Recognition of a State's interest in complying with the Voting Rights Act does not address the practical impossibility courts will encounter in identifying a predominant use of race, as distinguished from some lesser, reasonable consideration of it, when a State applies its customary districting principles. The limitation on the use of racial data is unlikely to make much difference in practice except to jeopardize minority incumbency protection. And the possibility that the Court will require Gingles districts (or districts substantially close
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