(Bench Opinion)
 NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being
done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.  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.  See United
                                                                     ______
States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
______    ___________________

                       SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

                                    Syllabus

                         ABRAMS ET AL. v. JOHNSON ET AL.
                                      ____

 APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES COURT DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF
                                     GEORGIA

            No. 95-1425.   Argued December 9, 1996 - Decided June 19,
                                1997 (Ftnote. *)
                                     (Ftnote. *)

The electoral district lines for Georgia's congressional delegation are here a
 second time, appeal now being taken from the District Court's rulings and
 determinations on remand after Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. ___, in which this
                                ______    ________
 Court affirmed the finding that the State's Eleventh District was unconstitu-
 tional because race was a predominant factor in its drawing, id., at ___.  The
                                                              ____
 plan challenged contained three majority-black districts, and after remand the
 complaint was amended to challenge another of these, the then Second District,
 which the trial court found was also improperly drawn under Miller.  The court
                                                             _______
 deferred to Georgia's Legislature to draw a new plan, but the legislature
 could not reach agreement.  The court then drew its own plan, containing but
 one majority-black district, the Fifth; this Court declined to stay the order;
 and the 1996 general elections were held under it.  The appellants, various
 voters and the United States, now seek to set the trial court's plan aside,
 claiming that it does not adequately take into account the interests of
 Georgia's black population.  

Held:  The District Court's redistricting plan is not unconstitutional. 
_____
 Pp. 3-26.
   (a) The trial court did not exceed its remedial power under the general rule
 of Upham v. Seamon, 456 U. S. 37, 43, whereby courts drawing voting district
    _____    _______
 lines must be guided by the legislative policies underlying the existing plan,
 to the extent they do not lead to violations of the Constitution or the Voting
 Rights Act of 1965 (Act). 

                    
____________________

   *)  Together with No. 95-1460, United States v. Johnson et al., also on ap-
   *)                             _____________    _______________
peal from the same court.
                                                                    I           

II                              ABRAMS v. JOHNSON
                                      ____

                                    Syllabus

 Appellants' argument that this rule required the trial court to adopt three
 majority-black districts, as in the 1992 plan at issue in Miller, or two such
                                                           _______
 districts, as in the Georgia Legislature's original 1991 plan, is unavailing,
 given the background against which the legislature - and later the trial court
 - attempted to draw districts.  The considerable evidence of Justice Depart-
 ment pressure on Georgia to create the maximum number of majority-black
 districts, leading the state legislature to act based on an overriding concern
 with race, disturbed any sound basis for the trial court to defer to the 1991
 plan; the unconstitutional predominance of race in the 1992 plan's provenance
 of the Second and Eleventh Districts caused them to be improper departure
 points; and the proposals for either two or three majority-black districts in
 plans urged in the remedy phase of this litigation were flawed by evidence of
 predominant racial motive in their design.  Thus, the trial court acted well
 within its discretion in deciding it could not draw two majority-black
 districts without engaging in racial gerrymandering.  Pp. 3-14.
   (b) The court-ordered plan does not contravene S2 of the Act, a violation of
 which occurs if "it is shown that the political processes leading to . . .
 election . . . are not equally open to participation by members of [a racial
 minority] . . . ," 42 U. S. C. S1973(b).  The Court rejects appellants'
 contrary position premised on impermissible vote dilution in the trial court's
 failure to create a second majority-black district.  A plaintiff seeking to
 establish such dilution must, inter alia, meet three requirements set forth in
                               ___________
 Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 50-51.  Because the trial court found,
 _________    ________
 without clear error, that the black population was not sufficiently compact
 for a second majority-black district, the first of these factors is not
 satisfied.  Nor can it be said, given evidence of significant white crossover
 voting, that the trial court clearly erred in finding insufficient racial
 polarization to meet the second and third Gingles factors, that the minority
                                           _______
 group is "politically cohesive" and that the majority votes sufficiently as a
 bloc to enable it to defeat the minority's preferred candidate.  The Court
 disagrees with appellants' arguments that the trial court's S2 findings are
 not owed deference because its rulings that S2 required maintenance of the
 Fifth District but not creation of a new majority-black district are
 inconsistent, because it did not hold a separate hearing on whether its
 remedial plan violated S2, and because it barred private intervention to
 defend the Second District's constitutionality.  Pp. 15-20.
   (c) The plan does not violate S5 of the Act, which requires that covered
 jurisdictions obtain either administrative preclearance by the United States
 Attorney General or approval from the United States District Court for the
 District of Columbia for any voting-procedure

                                ABRAMS v. JOHNSON                            III
                                      ____

                                    Syllabus

 change, and that such a change "not have the purpose [or] effect of denying or
 abridging the right to vote on account of race or color," 42 U. S. C. S1973c. 
 The section aims to prevent changes leading to a retrogression in the position
 of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral
 franchise.  Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 141.  Although a court-
             ____    ______________
 devised redistricting plan such as the one at issue need not be precleared
 under S5, Connor v. Johnson, 402 U. S. 690, 691 (per curiam), the court should
           ______    ________                    _____________
 take into account the appropriate S5 standards in fashioning such a plan,
 McDaniel v. Sanchez, 452 U. S. 130, 149.  Even were this Court to accept one
 ________    ________
 of appellants' proposed benchmarks for measuring retrogression, their desired
 remedy would be impermissible because they have not demonstrated it was
 possible to create a second majority-black district within constitutional
 bounds.  Moreover, none of their proposed benchmarks - the 1991 plan, the
 State's supposed policy of creating two majority-black districts, and the 1992
 plan shorn of its constitutional defects - was ever in effect, and thus none
 could operate as a benchmark under the Attorney General's regulations and,
 e.g., Holder v. Hall, 512 U. S. 874, 883-884.  Nor can the 1992 plan,
 ____________    _____
 constitutional defects and all, be the benchmark, since S5 cannot be used to
 freeze in place the very aspects of a plan found unconstitutional.  The
 appropriate benchmark is, in fact, what the District Court concluded it would
 be: the 1982 plan, in effect for a decade.  Appellants have not shown that
 black voters in any particular district suffered a retrogression in their
 voting strength under the court plan measured against the 1982 plan. 
 Pp. 20-23.
   (d) The plan does not violate the constitutional guarantee of one person, one
 vote under Article I, S2.  Although court-ordered districts must ordinarily
 achieve that provision's goal of population equality with little more than de
                                                                            __
 minimis variation, e.g., Chapman v. Meier, 420 U. S. 1, 26-27, slight
 _______            _____________    ______
 deviations are allowed upon enunciation of unique features or historically
 significant state policies, id., at 26, including, e.g., the desire to respect
                             ____                   _____
 municipal boundaries and to preserve the cores of prior districts, Karcher v.
                                                                    _______
 Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 740.  Here, the trial court's plan has an overall
 ________
 population deviation lower than any other plan presented to it which was not
 otherwise constitutionally defective.  Moreover, the court recited in detail
 those factors supporting the plan's slight deviation, including Georgia's
 strong historical preference for not splitting counties outside the Atlanta
 area and for not splitting precincts, as well as the State's interests in
 maintaining core districts and communities of interest, given its unusually
 high number of counties.  Even if this Court found the plan's population
 deviation unacceptable, the solution would not be adoption of appellants'
 constitutionally infirm, race-based, plans,

IV                              ABRAMS v. JOHNSON
                                      ____

                                    Syllabus

 but simply the shifting of a few precincts to even out the districts with the
 greatest deviations.  Moreover, equitable considerations - the passage of more
 than six years since the census on which appellants' data is based and
 Georgia's ongoing and dramatic population shifts and changes - disfavor
 requiring yet another reapportionment to correct the court plan's deviation. 
 See id., at 732.  Pp. 23-26.
     ____

922 F. Supp 1556, affirmed.

 KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J.,
and O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and THOMAS, JJ., joined.  BREYER, J., filed a dissenting
opinion, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined.