110
Breyer, J., dissenting
subsequently made clear that, even if racial considerations "predominate" in a State's drawing of a district boundary, that district is nonetheless lawful (because there is a compelling, hence redeeming, interest) if the State has "a strong basis in evidence for concluding" that the district would otherwise violate VRA § 2. Bush, 517 U. S., at 994 (O’Connor, J., concurring); see also Miller, 515 U. S., at 921; Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630, 656-657 (1993). That " 'strong basis in evidence' need not take any particular form," Bush, 517 U. S., at 994 (O’Connor, J., concurring), and where it is present, the State "may create a majority-minority district without awaiting judicial findings," ibid.; see also Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 289-291 (1986) (O’Connor, J., concurring); McDaniel v. Barresi, 402 U. S. 39, 41 (1971). The majority does not reject this standard. Ante, at 90-91. And it cannot deny that there is a "strong basis in the evidence" for believing that, after the 1990 census, VRA § 2, § 5, or both, required the creation of a second majority-minority district.
As the majority agrees, § 2 requires a second majority-minority district here, if the "totality of [the] circumstances" suggests that racial minorities are excluded from "participat-[ing] in the political process" and "elect[ing] representatives of their choice," 42 U. S. C. § 1973(b), and the evidence shows that (1) the minority group "is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority" in a second "single-member district"; (2) the minority group is "politically cohesive"; and (3) the majority "votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it . . . usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate." Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 50-51 (1986).
The majority discusses only these last (Gingles) requirements at any length. As to the first requirement—compactness—the plans before the District Court raised two possibilities: first, the creation of a majority-minority district in southwest Georgia—in approximately the area labeled Dis-
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