Cite as: 517 U. S. 899 (1996)
Stevens, J., dissenting
ord reveals that two race-neutral, traditional districting criteria determined District 12's shape: the interest in ensuring that incumbents would remain residents of the districts they have previously represented; and the interest in placing predominantly rural voters in one district and predominantly urban voters in another. 861 F. Supp., at 466-472; see also Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900 (1995) (considering whether communities of interest were preserved); White v. Weiser, 412 U. S. 783, 793-797 (1973) (establishing incumbency protection as a legitimate districting principle).
Unlike most States, North Carolina has not given its chief executive any power to veto enactments of its legislature. Thus, even though the voters had elected a Republican Governor, the Democratic majority in the legislature was in control of the districting process. It was the Democrats who first decided to adopt the 11-white-district plan that arguably would have violated § 2 of the Voting Rights Act and gave rise to the Attorney General's objection under § 5. It was also the Democrats who rejected Republican Party maps that contained two majority-minority districts because they created too many districts in which a majority of the residents were registered Republicans. 861 F. Supp., at 460.
If race rather than incumbency protection had been the dominant consideration, it seems highly unlikely that the Democrats would have drawn this bizarre district rather than accepting more compact options that were clearly available. If race, rather than politics, had been the "predominant" consideration for the Democrats, they could have accepted the Republican Plan, thereby satisfying the Attorney General and avoiding any significant risk of liability as well as the attack mounted by the plaintiffs in this case. Instead, as the detailed findings of the District Court demonstrate, the legislature deliberately crafted a districting plan that
is in any way impaired by virtue of the fact that their State is not even contiguous.
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