942
Stevens, J., dissenting
tors as a result of prior discriminatory practices, see 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (1988 ed.), there is less reason to assume that the state legislative judgments under review here are based on unwarranted generalizations than may be true in other contexts. Thus, even if a desire to correct past discrimination did not itself drive the legislative decision to draw two majority-minority districts, it plainly constituted a legitimate and significant additional factor supporting the decision to do so. 861 F. Supp., at 472-473.
Second, regardless of whether § 5 of the Act was actually violated, I believe the State's interest in avoiding the litigation that would have been necessary to overcome the Attorney General's objection to the original plan provides an acceptable reason for creating a second majority-minority district. It is entirely proper for a State whose past practices have subjected it to the preclearance obligation set forth in § 5 to presume that the Attorney General's construction of the Act is correct, and to take corrective action rather than challenging him 17 in Court.
Moreover, even if the State's interest in avoiding a court challenge that might have succeeded does not constitute a sufficient justification for its decision to draw a majority-minority district, the State plainly had an interest in complying with a finding by the Attorney General that it reasonably believed could not have been successfully challenged in court. The majority disagrees, relying on our analysis in Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S., at 920-925. That reliance is misplaced.
In Miller, the Court concluded that Georgia had simply acceded to the Attorney General's unreasonable construction of § 5 without performing any independent assessment of its validity. Ibid. By contrast, the District Court here found as a factual matter that the legislature's independent assess-17 Although Attorney General Reno has endorsed the position taken by the Republican administration in 1991, it was her male predecessor who refused to preclear the State's original plan.
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