76
Syllabus
for measuring retrogression, their desired remedy would be impermissible because they have not demonstrated it was possible to create a second majority-black district within constitutional bounds. Moreover, none of their proposed benchmarks—the 1991 plan, the State's supposed policy of creating two majority-black districts, and the 1992 plan shorn of its constitutional defects—was ever in effect, and thus none could operate as a benchmark under the Attorney General's regulations and, e. g., Holder v. Hall, 512 U. S. 874, 883-884. Nor can the 1992 plan, constitutional defects and all, be the benchmark, since § 5 cannot be used to freeze in place the very aspects of a plan found unconstitutional. The appropriate benchmark is, in fact, what the District Court concluded it would be: the 1982 plan, in effect for a decade. Appellants have not shown that black voters in any particular district suffered a retrogression in their voting strength under the court plan measured against the 1982 plan. Pp. 95-98. (d) The plan does not violate the constitutional guarantee of one person, one vote under Article I, § 2. Although court-ordered districts must ordinarily achieve that provision's goal of population equality with little more than de minimis variation, e. g., Chapman v. Meier, 420 U. S. 1, 26-27, slight deviations are allowed upon enunciation of unique features or historically significant state policies, id., at 26, including, e. g., the desire to respect municipal boundaries and to preserve the cores of prior districts, Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 740. Here, the trial court's plan has an overall population deviation lower than any other plan presented to it which was not otherwise constitutionally defective. Moreover, the court recited in detail those factors supporting the plan's slight deviation, including Georgia's strong historical preference for not splitting counties outside the Atlanta area and for not splitting precincts, as well as the State's interests in maintaining core districts and communities of interest, given its unusually high number of counties. Even if this Court found the plan's population deviation unacceptable, the solution would not be adoption of appellants' constitutionally infirm, race-based, plans, but simply the shifting of a few precincts to even out the districts with the greatest deviations. Moreover, equitable considerations—the passage of more than six years since the census on which appellants' data is based and Georgia's ongoing and dramatic population shifts and changes—disfavor requiring yet another reapportionment to correct the court plan's deviation. See id., at 732. Pp. 98-101.
922 F. Supp. 1556, affirmed.
Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O’Connor, Scalia, and Thomas, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed
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