84
Opinion of the Court
Member—the Lewis-Gingrich Amici-R plan—contained two majority-black districts. In response, it is said, to a submission by plaintiffs, the Justice Department submitted its "Illustrative Plan." The Justice Department did not do so, however, until after the evidence closed. The plan contained two majority-black districts and split two counties outside the Atlanta area and numerous precincts. The plaintiffs objected to the submission. The District Court mentioned the Illustrative Plan in its opinion but did not give an explicit ruling on the objection. The late submission prevented the Justice Department's demographer from being cross-examined about racial motivations, and for this reason its significance must be discounted.
The District Court considered the plans submitted by the various parties and then adopted its own. See Appendix, fig. 3. Noting the Justice Department's thorough "subversion of the redistricting process" since the 1990 census, it based its plan on the State's 1972 and 1982 plans. 922 F. Supp., at 1563. The court first had to decide where to locate the new Eleventh District, and did so in an area of significant population growth near Atlanta, so as to displace the fewest counties. It then considered Georgia's traditional redistricting principles based on maintaining: district cores, four traditional "corner districts" in the corners of the State, political subdivisions such as counties and cities, and an urban majority-black district in the Atlanta area. Protecting incumbents from contests with each other was another factor, which the court subordinated to the others because it was "inherently more political." Id., at 1565. The District Court stated that, in fashioning a remedy, it considered the possibility of creating a second majority-black district but decided doing so would require it to "subordinate Georgia's traditional districting policies and consider race predominantly, to the exclusion of both constitutional norms and common sense." Id., at 1566. Georgia did not have a black population of sufficient concentration to allow creation
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