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Breyer, J., dissenting
Court's opinions, required as legal justification for a district that otherwise would violate the basic predominant factor test of Miller.
This legal distinction—between whether a plan really violates § 2 or might well violate § 2—may seem technical. But it is not. A legal rule that permits legislatures to take account of race only when § 2 really requires them to do so is a rule that shifts the power to redistrict from legislatures to federal courts (for only the latter can say what § 2 really requires). A rule that rests upon a reasonable view of the evidence (i. e., that permits the legislature to use race if it has a "strong basis" for believing it necessary to do so) is a rule that leaves at least a modicum of discretionary (race-related) redistricting authority in the hands of legislators. Again (and at a minimum), the District Court's use of the wrong test requires vacating its judgment.
C
To create a second majority-minority district is not impractical nor would doing so significantly interfere with other important districting objectives. The easiest way to understand why this is so is to look at three plans that I have placed in the Appendix, infra. I shall call the Georgia Legislature's 1991 two-district reapportionment Plan A. Appendix, 1991 Plan, infra. I shall call the one-district plan adopted by the court Plan B. Appendix, 1995 Court Plan, infra. And I shall call the two-district Illustrative Plan proposed by the Justice Department Plan C. Appendix, Illustrative Plan, infra. Inspection of the three plans suggests that the District Court's plan (B) is very similar to the other two (A and C) but for one critical feature, namely, that it has one majority-minority district rather than two.
Now consider the three plans in respect to each of the five districting considerations that the District Court called traditional and important. They are: (a) retaining one district in each corner of the State; (b) creating an urban minor-
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