94
Opinion of the Court
required maintenance of the majority-black Fifth District but not creation of a new majority-black district. The District Court found the black population in the Fifth District "is sufficiently compact and, being an urban minority population, has a sufficiently strong community of interest to warrant being a majority-minority district." 922 F. Supp., at 1568. The court also said the probability of electing a candidate is below 50% when the percentage of black registered voters is 50%, ibid., and therefore the percentage of black registered voters should be kept as close to 55% as possible in the Fifth District. (The District Court noted, however, that it was uncomfortable using percentages of registered voters rather than voting age population, since "that in essence condones voter apathy." Id., at 1568, n. 18.) The court made no explicit findings about differences in the racial polarization of voting between the Fifth and Eleventh Districts.
We do not agree that the District Court's maintenance of the Fifth District as a majority-black district under § 2 indicates its § 2 findings in reference to other districts are conflicting and not entitled to deference. The District Court noted that maintenance of a majority-black district in the Atlanta area—created in 1972 for compliance with the Voting Rights Act—had become a state districting policy. Id., at 1565. Further, it is possible, although we do not express any opinion on the subject, that changing the racial majority of the district would have violated § 5 retrogression principles.
Private appellants also argue no deference is due the District Court's § 2 finding both because the court did not hold a separate hearing on whether its remedial plan violated § 2 and because it barred private intervention to defend the constitutionality of the Second District. We do not agree. First, neither our precedents nor the Act require the court to hold a separate hearing on the adequacy under § 2 of a remedial plan. Second, the private defendant-intervenors
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