Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 27.0

20 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

Opinion of the Court 

was 27%, but there was only one majority-minority district.  
Id.,  at  906.    To  comply  with  the  VRA,  Georgia  thought  it 
necessary to create two more majority-minority districts—
achieving proportionality.  Id., at 920–921.  But like North 
Carolina  in  Shaw,  Georgia  could  not  create  the  districts 
without flouting traditional criteria.  One district “centered 
around  four  discrete,  widely  spaced  urban  centers  that 
ha[d]  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  each  other,  and 
stretch[ed] the district hundreds of miles across rural coun-
ties and narrow swamp corridors.”  515 U. S., at 908.  “Ge-
ographically,” we said of the map, “it is a monstrosity.”  Id., 
at 909. 
  In Bush v. Vera, a plurality of the Court again explained 
how traditional districting criteria limited any tendency of 
the  VRA  to  compel  proportionality.    The  case  concerned 
Texas’s creation of three additional majority-minority dis-
tricts.  517 U. S., at 957.  Though the districts brought the 
State closer to proportional representation, we nevertheless 
held that they constituted racial gerrymanders in violation 
of the Fourteenth Amendment.  That was because the dis-
tricts had “no integrity in terms of traditional, neutral re-
districting criteria.”  Id., at 960.  One of the majority-black 
districts  consisted  “of  narrow  and  bizarrely  shaped  tenta-
cles.”  Id., at 965.  The proposed majority-Hispanic district 
resembled  “a  sacred  Mayan  bird”  with  “[s]pindly  legs 
reach[ing] south” and a “plumed head ris[ing] northward.”  
Id., at 974. 
  The point of all this is a simple one.  Forcing proportional 
representation  is  unlawful  and  inconsistent  with  this 
Court’s  approach  to  implementing  §2.    The  numbers  bear 
the point out well.  At the congressional level, the fraction 
of districts in which black-preferred candidates are likely to 
win “is currently below the Black share of the eligible voter 
population  in  every  state  but  three.”    Brief  for  Professors 
Jowei Chen et al. as Amici Curiae 3 (Chen Brief ).  Only one