Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 66

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

21 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

that “an express racial target” is not highly probative evi-
dence  of  racial  predominance.    580  U. S.,  at  192  (placing 
“express racial target[s]” alongside “stark splits in the ra-
cial composition of [redistricted] populations” as “relevant 
districtwide  evidence”).    That  the  Bethune-Hill  majority 
“decline[d]”  to  act  as  a  “ ‘court  of  . . .  first  view,’ ”  instead 
leaving  the  ultimate  issue  of  predominance  for  remand, 
cannot be transmuted into such an implausible holding or, 
in truth, any holding at all.  Id., at 193. 
  The  plurality  is  also  mistaken  that  my  predominance 
analysis  would  doom  every  illustrative  map  a  §2  plaintiff 
“ever adduced.” Ante, at 25 (emphasis deleted).  Rather, it 
would mean only that—because §2 requires a race-neutral 
benchmark—plaintiffs  cannot  satisfy  their  threshold  bur-
den  of  showing  a  reasonably  configured  alternative  plan 
with a proposal that could only be viewed as a racial gerry-
mander if enacted by the State.  This rule would not bar a 
showing, in an appropriate case, that a State could create 
an additional majority-minority district through a reasona-
ble redistricting process in which race did not predominate.  
It would, on the other hand, screen out efforts to use §2 to 
push racially proportional districting to the limits of what 
a  State’s  geography  and  demography  make  possible—the 
approach taken by the illustrative maps here. 

C 
  The foregoing analysis should be enough to resolve these 
cases: If the plaintiffs have not shown that Alabama could 
create  two  majority-black  districts  without  resorting  to  a 
racial  gerrymander,  they  cannot  have  shown  that  Ala-
bama’s one-majority-black-district map “dilutes” black Ala-
bamians’ voting strength relative to any meaningfully race-
neutral benchmark.  The inverse, however, is not true: Even 
if it were possible to regard the illustrative maps as not re-
quiring racial predominance, it would not necessarily follow 
that a two-majority-black-district map was an appropriate