568
Syllabus
firms this authority as well as the legislature's continuing refusal to address the issue in formal session. The State has taken advantage of the opportunity recognized in Growe and Wise. Pp. 575-578. (b) The District Court was not bound to adjudicate liability before settlement even though appellant refused to settle. The settlement agreement did not impermissibly impose duties or obligations on appellant or dispose of his claims. See Firefighters v. Cleveland, 478 U. S. 501, 529. It disposed of his claim not in the forbidden sense of cutting him off from a remedy to which he was entitled, but only in the legitimate sense of granting him an element of the very relief he had sought: the elimination of the plan he claimed was unconstitutional. Insofar as appellant also wanted the new plan to be constitutional, he is in the same position he would have been with a formal decree: his views on Plan 386's merits were heard, and his right to attack it in this appeal is unimpaired. He may not demand the adjudication that the State could have demanded but instead waived. Pp. 578-580. 2. The District Court's finding that Plan 386 did not subordinate traditional districting principles to race is not clearly erroneous. See Miller v. Johnson, supra, at 915-917. Appellant's contrary claim is based on his charges that District 21 encompasses more than one county, crosses a body of water, is irregular in shape, lacks compactness, and contains a percentage of black voters significantly higher than the overall percentage in the counties from which the district is drawn. His first four points ignore unrefuted evidence showing that District 21 is no different from what Florida's traditional districting principles could have been expected to produce. As to the final point, this Court has never suggested that the percentage of black residents in a district may not exceed the percentage of black residents in any of the counties from which a district is created, and has never required similar racial composition of different political districts to avoid an inference of racial gerry-mandering in any one of them. Pp. 580-582.
920 F. Supp. 1248, affirmed.
Souter, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which O’Connor, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined, post, p. 583.
Robert J. Shapiro argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs was C. Martin Lawyer III, pro se.
Richard G. Taranto argued the cause for the state appel-lees. With him on the brief were Peter Antonacci, Deputy
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