Cite as: 521 U. S. 74 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
cleared plan. The ACLU plans were introduced at the remedial hearing by Selwyn Carter, an employee of the Atlanta-based private Southern Regional Council whose job was to draw and advocate reapportionment plans across the South. Mr. Carter said his "basic goal" in preparing the plans was "[t]o show that it is possible to draw a plan in which African American voters comprise approximately 50 percent of the voting age population of a district and at the same time show that race was not a factor." Tr. 296 (Oct. 30, 1995). The "least-change" plan, ACLU 1A, has numerous flaws. Besides its high population deviation, to be discussed, the Eleventh District has an iguana-like shape betraying the same invidious purpose we condemned in Miller. The only two plans close to the trial court's in terms of population deviation are Abrams A and the Justice Department's Illustrative Plan. Abrams A, with its three majority-black districts, splits nine counties in the Second District and three in the Eleventh, as well as numerous other counties in different parts of the State. The twisted shapes of its Second and Eleventh Districts again bear witness to racial motivation. The Illustrative Plan splits Bibb County—a county never before split in apportionment plans—to subsume Macon's black population. Although the Justice Department submitted the plan after the close of evidence, and in consequence its demographer could not be cross-examined on the question of racial motivation, the District Court recognized its apparent racial impetus. 922 F. Supp., at 1561, n. 4. Indeed, the Justice Department acknowledged a racial motivation at oral argument before the Court. Tr. of Oral Arg. 12, 16. The Justice Department also suggested it was proper to split Bibb County because the mayor and city council of Macon supported splitting the county and city into different districts. Id., at 13. Macon's alleged urge to be segregated for congressional districting purposes, however, cannot vitiate the equal protection rights of the Eleventh District's objecting voters.
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