On the same reasoning, I would affirm the District Court's dismissal of appellants' claim in this instance. See id., at 55,58. Because the holding is limited to such anomalous circumstances, it perhaps will not substantially hamper a State's legitimate efforts to redistrict in favor of racial minorities. Our conclusion is supported by the plurality opinion in UJO, in which four Justices determined that New York's creation of additional majority-minority districts was constitutional because the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate that the State "did more than the Attorney General was authorized to require it to do under the nonretrogression principle of Beer." In Shaw v. Reno (1993), the U.S. Supreme Court questioned the use of racial gerrymandering in North Carolina's reapportionment plan. Furthermore, how it intends to manage this standard, I do not know. The States certainly have a very strong interest in complying with federal antidiscrimination laws that are constitutionally valid as interpreted and as applied. The central explanation has to do with the nature of the redistricting process. When an assumption that people in a particular minority group (whether they are defined by the political party, religion, ethnic group, or race to which they belong) will vote in a particular way is used to benefit that group, no constitutional violation occurs. If, on remand, the allegations of a racial gerrymander are not contradicted, the District Court must determine whether the plan is narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest. 5 See Richmond v. J. In this case, the Attorney General suggested that North Carolina could have created a reasonably compact second majority-minority district in the south-central to southeastern part of the State. I The voting age population of North Carolina is approxi-mately 78% white, 20% black, and 1% Native American; the remaining 1% is predominantly Asian. They threaten to stigmatize individuals by reason of their membership in a racial group and to incite racial hostility. When a newly created district cannot be explained by means other than race, it is subject to strict scrutiny. The essence of the majority's argument is that UJO dealt with a claim of vote dilution-which required a specific showing of harm-and that cases such as Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960), and Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U. S. 52 (1964), dealt with claims of racial segregation-which did not. Indeed, racial classifications receive close scrutiny even when they may be said to burden or benefit the races equally. It spite of such criticisms, the redistricting accomplished its goal. The Equal Protection Clause is only violated when a law seeks to hurt a minority group in voting.t. UJO, supra, at 151-152. The Justices disagreed only as to whether the plaintiffs had carried their burden of proof at trial. Petitioners'. 21A376 (21-1087) v. MARCUS CASTER, ET AL. In determining whether a use of race is permissible in cases in which there is a bizarrely shaped district, we can readily look to its effects, just as we would in evaluating any other electoral districting scheme. Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 758 (1983) (STEVENS, J., concurring). See, e. g., Guinn v. United States, 238 U. S. 347 (1915). Earlier this Term, we unanimously reaffirmed that racial bloc voting and minority-group political cohesion never can be assumed, but specifically must be proved in each case in order to establish that a redistricting plan dilutes minority voting strength in violation of 2. More importantly, the majority's submission does not withstand analysis. d. Suppose that patients in a certain control group are awake from 7 A.M. to 10 P.M. What is the average body temperature of such a patient over this wakeful period? There is no support for this distinction in UJO, and no authority in the cases relied on by the Court either. In the example the verb is answered. But it soon became apparent that guaranteeing equal access to the polls would not suffice to root out other racially discriminatory voting practices. As a majority of the Justices construed the complaint, the UJO plaintiffs made a different claim: that the New York plan impermissibly "diluted" their voting strength. Our voting rights precedents support that conclusion. [W]e believe that reapportionment is one area in which appearances do matter. This small sample only begins to scratch the surface of the problems raised by the majority's test. As Justice Douglas explained in his dissent in Wright v. Rockefeller nearly 30 years ago: "Here the individual is important, not his race, his creed, or his color. For much of our Nation's history, that right sadly has been denied to many because of race. UJO, supra, at 148. See Fed. Edwin S. Kneedler argued the cause for federal appellees. JUSTICE WHITE describes the formulations we have used and the common categories of dilutive practice in his dissenting opinion. The question before us is whether appellants have stated a cognizable claim. Appellants contended that the General Assembly's revised reapportionment plan violated several provisions of the United States Constitution, including the Fourteenth Amendment. Classifying citizens by race, as we have said, threatens spe-. This case involves two of the most complex and sensitive issues this Court has faced in recent years: the meaning of the constitutional "right" to vote, and the propriety of racebased state legislation designed to benefit members of historically disadvantaged racial minority groups. They were the first blacks to represent North Carolina, a state with a 20 percent black population, since 1901. Again, however, the equal protection inquiry should look at the group's overall influence over, and treatment by, elected representatives and the political process as a whole. Location North Carolina General Assembly. The majority also rejected appellants' claim that North Carolina's reapportionment plan was impermissible. Post, at 680 (dissenting opinion). Bush administration rejected this plan on the grounds that it gave blacks insufficient congressional representation. In this case, the Attorney General suggested that North Carolina could have created a reasonably compact second majority-minority district in the south-central to southeastern part of the State. When a district obviously is created solely to effectuate the perceived common interests of one racial group, elected officials are more likely to believe that their primary obligation is to represent only the members of that group, rather than their constituency as a whole. Cf. See ante, at 647. See ante, at 661-663, 669-670.6. the community, they violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection"); Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S., at 178-183, and nn. 461, 476 (EDNC 1992) (Voorhees, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), and a "bug splattered on a windshield," Wall Street Journal, Feb. 4, 1992, p. A14. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. But the State must have a "'strong basis in evidence for [concluding] that remedial action [is] necessary.'" In whatever district, the individual voter has a right to vote in each election, and the election will result in the voter's representation. 3. We have made clear, however, that equal protection analysis "is not dependent. The majority resolved the case under the Fifteenth Amendment. It involves, instead, an attempt to equalize treatment, and to provide minority voters with an effective voice in the political process. Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions; it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters-a goal that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments embody, and to which the Nation continues to aspire. They also stated: "'Our argument is that the history of the area demonstrates that there could be-and in fact was-no reason other than race to divide the community at this time.'" fications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics." See ante, at 634-635. To begin with, the complaint nowhere alleges any type of stigmatic harm. The question before us is whether appellants have stated a cognizable claim. Journalize the entry to record the identification of the customers bad debt. In 1982, it amended 2 of the Voting Rights Act to prohibit legislation that results in the dilution of a minority group's voting strength, regardless of the legislature's intent. Because the State's purpose here was to comply with the Voting Rights Act, and because the General Assembly's plan did not lead to proportional underrepresentation of white voters state-. 16-19. Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 144 (1976) (WHITE, J., dissenting). Wright involved a challenge to a legislative plan that created four districts. Moreover, it seems clear to us that proof sometimes will not be difficult at all. With respect to this incident, one writer has observed that "understanding why the configurations are shaped as they are requires us to know at least as much about the interests of incumbent Democratic politicians, as it does knowledge of the Voting Rights Act." (b) Classifications of citizens based solely on race are by their nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality, because they threaten to stigmatize persons by reason of their membership in a racial group and to incite racial hostility. wide, the majority concluded that appellants had failed to state an equal protection claim. As we have explained, however, reapportionment legislation that cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to classify and separate voters by race injures voters in other ways. Supp., at 466-467; id., at 474 (Voorhees, C. J., concurring. -dividing voters into districts bc of race is segregation. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google. Although the State argues that it had a strong basis for concluding that remedial action was warranted, only three Justices in UJO were prepared to say that States have a significant interest in minimizing the consequences of racial bloc voting apart from the Act's requirements and without regard for sound districting principles. Classifications of citizens solely on the basis of race "are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality." See Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 40-41 (1993) ("Unless these points are established, there neither has been a wrong nor can be a remedy"). At some points the district was no wider than Interstate 85, prompting one state legislator to remark that if "you drove down the interstate with both car doors open, you'd kill most of the people in the district." Ostensibly race-neutral devices such as literacy tests with "grandfather" clauses and "good character" provisos were devised to deprive black voters of the franchise. Plainly, this variety is not implicated by appellants' allegations and need not detain us further. On the same reasoning, I would affirm the District Court's dismissal of appellants' claim in this instance. The jurisdiction must obtain either a judgment from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia declaring that the proposed change "does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color" or administrative preclearance from the Attorney General. 430 U. S., at 168 (opinion of WHITE, J., joined by STEVENS and REHNQUIST, JJ.) Id., at 59. We summarily affirmed that decision. Unlike other contexts in which we have addressed the State's conscious use of race, see, e. g., Richmond v. J. In the 17th, 19th, and 20th Districts, whites constituted respectively 94.9%, 71.5%, and 72.5% of the population. If not, it does not. It also will be true where the minority population is not scattered but, for reasons unrelated to racefor example incumbency protection-the State would rather not create the majority-minority district in its most "obvious" location.10 When, as is the case here, the creation of. We have rejected such perceptions elsewhere as impermissible racial stereotypes. By perpetuating such notions, a racial gerrymander may exacerbate the very patterns of racial bloc voting that majority-minority districting is sometimes said to counteract. This new plant is expected to generate aftertax cash flows of$9.4 million in perpetuity. There is thus no theoretical inconsistency in having two distinct approaches to equal protection analysis, one for cases of electoral districting and one for most other types of state governmental decisions. This is altogether antithetical to our system of representative democracy. Brief for State Appellees 5, n. 6. The new district stretches approximately 160 miles along Interstate 85 and, for much of its length, is no wider than the 1-85 corridor. In Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S., at 149, we searched in vain for evidence that black voters "had less opportunity than did other residents to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice." Thus, state legislation that expressly distinguishes among citizens on account of race-whether it contains an explicit distinction or is "unexplainable on grounds other than race," Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266-must be narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest. The State chose to submit its plan to the Attorney General for preclearance. These arguments were not developed below, and the issues remain open for consideration on remand. By this, I meant that the group must exhibit "strong indicia of lack of political power and the denial of fair representation," so that it could be said that it has "essentially been shut out of the political process." 21A375 is treated as a . Rather, appellants' complaint alleged that the deliberate segregation of voters into separate districts on the basis of race violated their constitutional right to participate in a "color-blind". A state must prove a compelling interest in order to survive a legal challenge to the redistricting plan. Thus, for example, awarding government contracts on a racial basis excludes certain firms from competition on racial grounds. Equal Protection Clause. 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