Cite as: 521 U. S. 74 (1997)
Breyer, J., dissenting
1991 Plan, infra. When the United States Department of Justice (DOJ or Justice Department) denied preclearance under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), 42 U. S. C. § 1973, the legislature proposed a second plan, which also contained two such districts. Subsequently the legislature proposed a third plan with three such districts—a plan approved by the Justice Department but struck down by this Court in Miller, supra.
What the District Court and the majority deny is that the "preferences" expressed in these three redistricting plans reflect the Georgia Legislature's true preference. The District Court said that "Georgia's current plan was not the product of Georgia's legislative will," but rather "was tainted by unconstitutional DOJ interference" into the "process" that produced the plan. 922 F. Supp., at 1560. The majority repeats the District Court's comment about DOJ's "thorough 'subversion of the redistricting process' since the 1990 census," ante, at 84, adds that the "State was predominantly driven" by "steady Justice Department pressure," ante, at 86, and concludes:
"Interference by the Justice Department . . . disturbed any sound basis to defer to the 1991 unprecleared plan . . . ." Ante, at 90.
I believe, however, that the majority's conclusion—its reason for refusing to recognize the Georgia Legislature's two-district preference—is wrong both as a matter of fact and as a matter of law.
The conclusion is factually inadequate because the testimony cited, ante, at 86-87, to show unusual DOJ pressure in the 1991 redistricting process shows nothing unusual. It shows only that the Justice Department told Georgia that it must comply with the VRA, which statement Georgia legislators might have considered an exhortation to create more than one majority-minority district. Tr. 16 (Apr. 18, 1994); id., at 431-433 (Oct. 30, 1995); Deposition of Linda Meggers,
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