Cite as: 517 U. S. 952 (1996)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
to clarify the States' responsibilities. The States have traditionally guarded their sovereign districting prerogatives jealously, and we are confident that they can fulfill that requirement, leaving the courts to their customary and appropriate backstop role.
This Court has now rendered decisions after plenary consideration in five cases applying the Shaw I doctrine (Shaw I, Miller, Hays, Shaw II, and this suit). The dissenters would have us abandon those precedents, suggesting that fundamental concerns relating to the judicial role are at stake. See post, at 1035, 1038, 1041 (Stevens, J., dissenting); post, at 1047, and n. 2, 1052, 1064, 1074, 1076-1077 (Souter, J., dissenting); Shaw II, ante, at 919-920, 922-923, and n. 3, 929 (Stevens, J., dissenting); but see ante, at 932-933 (noting that the judicial task of distinguishing race-based from non-race-based action in Shaw I cases is far from unique). While we agree that those concerns are implicated here, we believe they point the other way. Our legitimacy requires, above all, that we adhere to stare decisis, especially in such sensitive political contexts as the present, where partisan controversy abounds. Legislators and district courts nationwide have modified their practices—or, rather, reem-braced the traditional districting practices that were almost universally followed before the 1990 census—in response to Shaw I. Those practices and our precedents, which acknowledge voters as more than mere racial statistics, play an important role in defining the political identity of the American voter. Our Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence evinces a commitment to eliminate unnecessary and excessive governmental use and reinforcement of racial stereotypes. See, e. g., Georgia v. McCollum, 505 U. S. 42, 59 (1992) ("[T]he exercise of a peremptory challenge must not be based on either the race of the juror or the racial stereotypes held by the party"); Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 630-631 (1991) ("If our society is to continue to progress as a multiracial democracy, it must recog-
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