Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 69

24 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

D 
  Given all this, by what benchmark did the District Court 
find that Alabama’s enacted plan was dilutive?  The answer 
is as simple as it is unlawful: The District Court applied a 
benchmark  of  proportional  control  based  on  race.    To  be 
sure,  that  benchmark  was  camouflaged  by  the  elaborate 
vote-dilution  framework  we  have  inherited  from  Gingles.  
But  nothing  else  in  that  framework  or  in  the  District 
Court’s reasoning supplies an alternative benchmark capa-
ble of explaining the District Court’s bottom line: that Ala-
bama’s  one-majority-black-district  map  dilutes  black  vot-
ers’ fair share of political power. 
  Under  Gingles,  the  majority  explains,  there  are  three 
“preconditions”  to  a  vote-dilution  claim:  (1)  the  relevant 
“minority  group  must  be  sufficiently  large  and  geograph-
ically compact to constitute a majority in a reasonably con-
figured district”; (2) the minority group must be “politically 
cohesive”;  and  (3)  the  majority  group  must  “vot[e]  suffi-
ciently  as  a  bloc  to  enable  it  to  defeat  the  minority’s  pre-
ferred candidate[s].”  Ante, at 10 (alterations and internal 
quotation marks omitted).  If these preconditions are satis-
fied, Gingles instructs courts to “consider the totality of the 
circumstances  and  to  determine,  based  upon  a  searching 
practical  evaluation  of  the  past  and  present  reality, 
whether  the  political  process  is  equally  open  to  minority 
voters.”    478  U. S.,  at  79  (citation  and  internal  quotation 
marks omitted). 
  The majority gives the impression that, in applying this 
framework, the District Court merely followed a set of well-

—————— 
Duchin  explained,  she  programmed  them  with  “an  algorithmic  prefer-
ence” for “plans in which there would be a second majority-minority dis-
trict.”  2 App. 709.  Thus, all that those algorithmic results prove is that 
it is possible to draw two majority-black districts in Alabama if one sets 
out to do so, especially with the help of sophisticated mapmaking soft-
ware.  What is still lacking is any justification for treating a two-major-
ity-black-district map as a proxy for the undiluted benchmark.