Cite as: 517 U. S. 952 (1996)
O'Connor, J., concurring
scheme, finding racial polarization and that candidates preferred by African-American voters were consistently defeated. See Williams v. Dallas, 734 F. Supp. 1317, 1387- 1394 (ND Tex. 1990). Expert testimony in this litigation also confirmed the existence of racially polarized voting in and around Dallas County. 4 Tr. 187; see also App. 227. With respect to geographical compactness, the record contains two quite different possible designs for District 30, the original Johnson Plan, id., at 139, and the Owens-Pate Plan, id., at 141, that are reasonably compact and include, respectively, 44% and 45.6% African-American populations. This evidence provided a strong basis for Texas' belief that the creation of a majority-minority district was appropriate. But Texas allowed race to dominate the drawing of District 30 to the almost total exclusion of nonracial districting considerations, and ultimately produced a district that, because of the misuse of race as a proxy in addition to legitimate efforts to satisfy § 2, is bizarrely shaped and far from compact. See ante, at 965-966, 969-973, and n. (plurality opinion); compare post, at 1014-1032 (Stevens, J., dissenting). It thus came under strict scrutiny and failed the narrow tailoring test.
As the disagreement among Members of this Court over District 30 shows, the application of the principles that I have outlined sometimes requires difficult exercises of judgment. That difficulty is inevitable. The VRA requires the States and the courts to take action to remedy the reality of racial inequality in our political system, sometimes necessitating race-based action, while the Fourteenth Amendment requires us to look with suspicion on the excessive use of racial considerations by the government. But I believe that the States, playing a primary role, and the courts, in their secondary role, are capable of distinguishing the appropriate and reasonably necessary uses of race from its unjustified and excessive uses.
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