116
Breyer, J., dissenting
not see how the majority, consistently with Upham, can affirm the District Court's determination.
II
In other cases dissenting judges have expressed concerns that the Court's holdings and particularly its test—"predominant racial motive"—would prove unworkable, that they would improperly shift redistricting authority from legislatures to courts, and that they would prevent the legitimate use (among others the remedial use) of race as a political factor in redistricting, sometimes making unfair distinctions between racial minorities and others. See, e. g., Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S., at 676-679 (Stevens, J., dissenting); id., at 679-687 (Souter, J., dissenting); Miller, 515 U. S., at 929 (Stevens, J., dissenting); id., at 934 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); Bush, 517 U. S., at 1003 (Stevens, J., dissenting); id., at 1045 (Souter, J., dissenting); Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899, 918 (1996) (Stevens, J., dissenting). This suit exacerbates those concerns.
Legislators, for example, may ask just what the words "predominant racial motive" mean. The question has no obvious answer because racial motives (here efforts to include some additional African-American voters in a particular district) never explain a predominant portion of a district's entire boundary (most of which inevitably reflects county lines, other geographical features, and sometimes even a discriminatory history, see App. 120-121); yet those motives always predominate in respect to those voters (whether few or many) whom the legislature, with consciousness of race, places for that reason in one district rather than another. More importantly, here, unlike other cases that use somewhat similar words, the Court has not turned to other considerations, such as discriminatory intent, or vote dilution, or even a district's bizarre geographical shape, to help explain, or to limit the scope of, the words themselves. Cf. Shaw v. Hunt, supra; Regester, supra; Reynolds, supra; and Gomil-
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