Traditional civil rights groups--the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund--submitted amicus curiae briefs in favor of the minority districts, and groups with long histories of opposition to quota programs--Washington Legal Foundation and the American Jewish Congress--argued against them. *, JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court. 460, 472 (SDNY 1962) (Murphy, J., dissenting); 376 U. S., at 54. We have rejected such perceptions elsewhere as impermissible racial stereotypes. More importantly, the majority's submission does not withstand analysis. Naomi buys $1,000 worth of American Express travelers checks and charges Const., Amdt. 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause. In light of this background, it strains credulity to suggest that North Carolina's purpose in creating a second majorityminority district was to discriminate against members of the majority group by "impair[ing] or burden[ing their] opportunity to participate in the political process." Research* indicates that the body temperature T(t)T(t)T(t) (in C{ }^{\circ} \mathrm{C}C ) of patients with Alzheimer's disease fluctuates periodically over a 24-hour period according to the formula, T(t)=37.29+0.46cos[(t16.37)12]T(t)=37.29+0.46 \cos \left[\frac{\pi(t-16.37)}{12}\right] 408 (E.D.N.C. It involves, instead, an attempt to equalize treatment, and to provide minority voters with an effective voice in the political process. Argued April 20, 1993-Decided June 28,1993. Oral Argument - April 20, 1993; Opinions. Fast Facts: Baker v. Carr Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 144 (1976) (WHITE, J., dissenting). Here, the Attorney General objected to the State's plan on the ground that it failed to draw a second majority-minority district for what appeared to be pretextual reasons. to Brief for Federal . Id., at 165-166. The Court affirmed the District Court's dismissal of the complaint on the ground that plaintiffs had not met their burden of proving discriminatory intent. See UJO, 430 U. S., at 165-166 (plurality opinion of WHITE, J., joined by STEVENS and REHNQUIST, JJ. The court agreed unanimously that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction by reason of 14(b) of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. 1973l(b), which vests the District Court for the District of Columbia with exclusive jurisdiction to issue injunctions against the execution of the Act and to enjoin actions taken by federal officers pursuant thereto. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267, 277278 (1986) (plurality opinion); id., at 285 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Thus. After the General Assembly passed legislation creating the second district, a group of white voters in North Carolina, led by Ruth O. Shaw, sued on the grounds that the district was an unconstitutional gerrymander . Laws that explicitly distinguish between individuals on racial grounds fall within the core of that prohibition. Classifications of citizens on the basis of race "are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality." 7, that included a second majority-black district. 9 As has been remarked, "[d]ragons, bacon strips, dumbbells and other strained shapes are not always reliable signs that partisan (or racial or ethnic or factional) interests are being served, while the most regularly drawn district may turn out to have been skillfully constructed with an intent to aid one party." tution), it has seemed more appropriate for the Court to identify impermissible uses by describing particular effects sufficiently serious to justify recognition under the Fourteenth Amendment. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469,494 (plurality opinion). of Ed., supra, at 282-283 (plurality opinion). But nothing in our case law compels the conclusion that racial and political gerrymanders are subject to precisely the same constitutional scrutiny. electoral process. (equating various articulations of standards of review "more stringent" than "'reasonableness'" with "strict scrutiny"). One need look no further than the Voting Rights Act to understand that this may be required, and we have held that race may constitutionally be taken into account in order to comply with that Act. A second distinction between districting and most other governmental decisions in which race has figured is that those other decisions using racial criteria characteristically occur in circumstances in which the use of race to the advantage of one person is necessarily at the obvious expense of a member of a different race. A reapportionment statute typically does not classify persons at all; it classifies tracts of land, or addresses. In short, even assuming that racial (or political) factors were considered in the drawing of district boundaries, a showing of discriminatory effects is a "threshold requirement" in the absence of which there is no equal protection violation, id., at 143, and no need to "reach the question of the state interests served by the particular districts," id., at 142.4, To distinguish a claim that alleges that the redistricting scheme has discriminatory intent and effect from one that does not has nothing to do with dividing racial classifications between the "benign" and the malicious-an enterprise which, as the majority notes, the Court has treated with skepticism. See Tr. of Ed., 476 U. S. 267 (1986) (teacher layoffs), electoral districting calls for decisions that nearly always require some consideration of race for legitimate reasons where there is a racially mixed population. The group claimed that the districts were racial gerrymanders that violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 461 (EDNC 1992). That duty, however, is not violated when the majority acts to facilitate the election of a member of a group that lacks such power because it remains underrepresented in the state legislature-whether that group is defined by political affiliation, by common economic interests, or by religious, ethnic, or racial characteristics. See Appendix, infra. Justice Frankfurter characterized the complaint as alleging a deprivation of the right to vote in violation of the Fifteenth Amendment. As stated above, five Justices were of the view that, absent any contention that the proposed plan was adopted with the intent, or had the effect, of unduly minimizing the white majority's voting strength, the Fourteenth Amendment was not implicated. Dissenting Opinion. Three Justices approved the New York statute, in part, precisely because it adhered to traditional districting principles: "[WJe think it permissible for a State, employing sound districting principles such as compactness and population equality, to attempt to prevent racial minorities from being repeatedly outvoted by creating districts that will afford fair representation to the members of those racial groups who are sufficiently numerous and whose residential patterns afford the opportunity of creating districts in which they will be in the majority.". To begin with, the complaint nowhere alleges any type of stigmatic harm. As a result of the 1990 census, North Carolina gained one congressional seat, increasing its House membership to twelve and requiring the state legislature to redraw the state's congressional districts. But "[a] number of states refused to take no for an answer and continued to circumvent the fifteenth amendment's prohibition through the use of both subtle and blunt instruments, perpetuating ugly patterns of pervasive racial discrimination." Does the Equal Protection Clause prevent a State from drawing district boundaries for the purpose of. The distinction is without foundation. of Oral Arg. The States certainly have a very strong interest in complying with federal antidiscrimination laws that are constitutionally valid as interpreted and as applied. Finally, nothing in the Court's highly fractured decision in UJO-on which the District Court almost exclusively relied, and which the dissenters evidently believe controls, see post, at 664-667 (opinion of WHITE, J. See supra, at 642-643. It is evident to me, however, that what North Carolina did was precisely tailored to meet the objection of the Attorney General to its prior plan. 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. ), or that such had been the State's intent, see id., at 179-180 (Stewart, J., joined by Powell, J., concurring in judgment). against anyone by denying equal access to the political process. It is unnecessary for us to decide whether or how a reapportionment plan that, on its face, can be explained in nonracial terms successfully could be challenged. of Cal. 2 It should be noted that 2 of the Voting Rights Act forbids any State to impose specified devices or procedures that result in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color. Not so, apparently, when the districting "segregates" by drawing odd-shaped lines.7 In that case, we are told, such proof no longer is needed. Three Justices rejected the plaintiffs' claim on the grounds that the New York statute "represented no racial slur or stigma with respect to whites or any other race" and left white voters with better than proportional representation. Journalize the entry to record and establish the allowance using the percentage method for January credit sales. Supp., at 472. [Appendix containing map of North Carolina Congressional Plan follows this page.]. See, e.g.,Rogers v. Lodge(1982);White v. Regester(1973). Constitutional Law for a Changing America Resource Center, 13. Id., at 53-54. The dissenters make two other arguments that cannot be reconciled with our precedents. It is shortsighted as well, for a regularly shaped district can just as effectively effectuate racially discriminatory gerrymandering as an odd-shaped one.9 By focusing on looks rather than impact, the majority "immediately casts attention in the wrong direction-toward superficialities of shape and size, rather than toward the political realities of district composition." 92-357 . Blumstein, Defining and Proving Race Discrimination: Perspectives on the Purpose V s. Results Approach from the Voting Rights Act, 69 Va. L. Rev. It included all or portions of twenty-eight counties. We previously have recognized a significant state interest in eradicating the effects of past racial discrimination. Allen v. State Board of Elections(1969) (emphasis added). As long as members of racial groups have the commonality of interest implicit in our ability to talk about concepts like <"minority voting strength," and "dilution of minority votes," cf.Thornburg v. Gingles(1986), and as long as racial bloc voting takes place, legislators will have to take race into account in order to avoid dilution of minority voting strength in the districting plans they adopt. They alleged that the General Assembly deliberately "create[d] two Congressional Districts in which a majority of black voters was concentrated arbitrarily-without regard to any other considerations, such as compactness, contiguousness, geographical boundaries, or political subdivisions" with the purpose "to create Congressional Districts along racial lines" and to assure the election of two black representatives to Congress. We summarily affirmed that decision. No.1, 458 U. S. 457, 485 (1982). They did not even claim to be white. Explain in words and with a diagram. The Court offers no adequate justification for treating the narrow category of bizarrely shaped district claims differently from other districting claims. A reapportionment plan would not be narrowly tailored to the goal of avoiding retrogression if the State went beyond what was reasonably necessary to avoid retrogression. Why was Shaw v Reno an important decision in terms of minority representation? fications are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics." the community, they violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection"); Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S., at 178-183, and nn. Statement, O. T. 1991, No. Significant changes in the area of redistricting and gerrymandering, Constitutional Clause/Amendment (Shaw v. Reno), 1. We note, however, that 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 requirements of the Voting Rights Act. 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. Photochronograph Corporation (PC) manufactures time series photographic equipment. See, e. g., Wygant v. Jackson Ed. Racial classifications with respect to voting carry particular dangers. McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U. S. 236, 245 (1984) (quoting South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 334, 335 (1966)).5 Like New York, North Carolina failed to prove to, 5 In Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 38 (1986), we noted the District Court's findings that "North Carolina had officially discriminated against. v. RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL, ET AL. For much of our Nation's history, that right sadly has been denied to many because of race. Statement 89a-90a; see also Brief for Appellants 31-32. Then locate the subject of the verb and underline it once. The grounds for my disagreement with the majority are simply stated: Appellants have not presented a cognizable claim, because they have not alleged a cognizable injury. We express no view as to whether appellants successfully could have challenged such a district under the Fourteenth Amendment. 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. The district even has inspired poetry: "Ask not for whom the line is drawn; it is drawn to avoid thee." See Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339. After the Attorney General of the United States objected to the plan pursuant to 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. "Dilution" thus refers to the effects of districting decisions not on an individual's political power viewed in isolation, but on the political power of a group. c. Answer the questions in part (b) for the minimum body temperature during the 24-hour period. There is no independent constitutional requirement of compactness or contiguity, and the Court's opinion (despite its many references to the shape of District 12, see ante, at 635-636, 641, 642, 644-648) does not suggest otherwise. As I understand the theory that is put forth, a redistricting plan that uses race to "segregate" voters by drawing "uncouth" lines is harmful in a way that a plan that uses race to distribute voters differently is not, for the former "bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid." or What? 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. 1 See Cousins v. City Council of Chicago, 466 F.2d 830, 848-852 (CA7) (Stevens, J., dissenting), cert. 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." Nonetheless, the notion that North Carolina's plan, under which whites remain a voting majority in a disproportionate number of congressional districts, and pursuant to which the State has sent its first black representatives since Reconstruction to the United States Congress, might have violated appellants' constitutional rights is both a fiction and a departure from settled equal protection principles. To begin, the Court's reliance on that case as the font of its novel type of claim is curious. In their complaint, appellants did not claim that the General Assembly's reapportionment plan unconstitutionally "diluted" white voting strength. Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 755 (1983) (STEVENS, J., concurring) ("One need not use Justice Stewart's classic definition of obscenity-'I know it when I see it' -as an ultimate standard for judging the constitutionality of a gerrymander to recognize that dramatically irregular shapes may have sufficient probative force to call for an explanation" (footnotes omitted)). The difficulty of proof, of course, does not mean that a racial gerrymander, once established, should receive less scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause than other state legislation classifying citizens by race. First, they suggest that a racial gerrymander of the sort alleged here is functionally equivalent to gerrymanders for nonracial purposes, such as political gerrymanders. 2 Recognition of actual commonality of interest and racially polarized bloc voting cannot be equated with the "'invocation of race stereotypes'" described by the Court, ante, at 648 (quoting Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U. S. 614, 630-631 (1991)), and forbidden by our case law. Edwin S. Kneedler argued the cause for federal appellees. Second, JUSTICE STEVENS argues that racial gerrymandering poses no constitutional difficulties when district lines are drawn to favor the minority, rather than the majority. Our different approaches to equal protection in electoral districting and nondistricting cases reflect these differences. The Court found that race could not be the deciding factor when drawing districts. Ujo, 430 U. S. 457, 485 ( 1982 ) ; WHITE v. Regester ( 1973 ) between. 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