108
Breyer, J., dissenting
Sanders, 372 U. S. 368 (1963); see also Morris v. Fortson, 261 F. Supp. 538, 541 (ND Ga. 1966); Lodge v. Buxton, 639 F. 2d 1358, 1378 (CA5 1981) (racial bloc voting in Burke County); Carrollton Branch of NAACP v. Stallings, 829 F. 2d 1547, 1559 (CA11 1987) (racial bloc voting in Carroll County); Cross v. Baxter, 604 F. 2d 875, 880, n. 8 (CA5 1979); Paige v. Gray, 437 F. Supp. 137, 158 (MD Ga. 1977) (Albany, Ga.); Pitts v. Busbee, 395 F. Supp. 35, 40 (ND Ga. 1975) (Fulton County); Bailey v. Vining, 514 F. Supp. 452, 461 (MD Ga. 1981) (Putnam County); Wilkes County v. United States, 450 F. Supp. 1171, 1174 (DC 1978); see generally E. Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, pp. 423-424 (1988); McDonald, Binford, & Johnson, Georgia, in Quiet Revolution in the South: The Impact of the Voting Rights Act, 1965-1990, pp. 67-74 (C. Davidson & B. Grofman eds. 1994).
The Georgia Legislature was likely aware of the many unfortunate consequences that have flowed from this history. They include the facts that, when Congress first enacted the VRA, fewer than 30 percent of African-Americans eligible to vote in Georgia had registered to vote, ibid., and that no African-American had represented Georgia in Congress since Reconstruction, App. 140, when Congressman Jefferson Franklin Long briefly represented the State. B. Ragsdale & J. Treese, Black Americans in Congress, 1870-1989, p. 81 (1990).
The Georgia Legislature also might have thought that some degree of (indeed, a less than proportionate amount of) majority-minority districting could help to overcome some of the problems these facts suggest. Forty-two members of Georgia's (180 member) House of Representatives themselves were elected from majority-black districts; 30 of those members are black, 12 are white. App. 116. One hundred thirty-eight members of Georgia's House were elected from majority-white districts; 1 of those members is black, 137 are white. Ibid. Forty-three members of Georgia's (56 mem-
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