576
Opinion of the Court
lant relies on Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25 (1993), in which we recognized that " 'reapportionment is primarily the duty and responsibility of the State through its legislature or other body, rather than of a federal court' [and that] [a]bsent evidence that these state branches will fail timely to perform that duty, a federal court must neither affirmatively obstruct state apportionment nor permit federal litigation to be used to impede it." Id., at 34 (quoting Chapman v. Meier, 420 U. S. 1, 27 (1975)). Appellant cites Wise v. Lipscomb, 437 U. S. 535 (1978), for the proposition that when a federal court declares an existing apportionment plan unconstitutional, it should, if possible, afford "a reasonable opportunity for the legislature to meet constitutional requirements by adopting a substitute measure rather than . . . devise and order into effect its own plan." Id., at 540 (opinion of White, J.). Appellant claims that the District Court's approval of the settlement agreement without first holding Plan 330 unconstitutional impaired the State's interest in exercising "primary responsibility for apportionment of [its] federal congressional and state legislative districts," Growe, supra, at 34, and had the derivative effect of "eviscerat[ing] the individual rights of" appellant, as a citizen and voter, to "the liberties derived from the diffusion of sovereign power . . . to representative state government," Brief for Appellant 26.
The substance of what appellant claims as a right to the benefit of political diffusion is nothing other than the rule declared in the cases he cites, that state redistricting responsibility should be accorded primacy to the extent possible when a federal court exercises remedial power. See Growe, 507 U. S., at 34. A State should be given the opportunity to make its own redistricting decisions so long as that is practically possible and the State chooses to take the opportunity.
ing of liability fairly encompass the claim he presents here. See 166 Tr. 30-31, 36-37, 39, 40 (Oct. 26, 1995); 180 Tr. 15-16 (Nov. 2, 1995).
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