Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 105

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

9 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

first  Gingles  precondition.    The  court  thought  that  a  §2 
plaintiff  cannot  proffer  a  reasonably  configured  majority-
minority district without first attempting to see if it is pos-
sible to create such a district—that is, by first making the 
identification of such a district “non-negotiable.”  Ibid.  But 
that is simply not so.  A plaintiff ’s expert can first create 
maps  using  only  criteria  that  do  not  give  race  a  predomi-
nant role and then determine how many contain the desired 
number of majority-minority districts. 
  One final observation about the District Court’s opinion 
is in order.  The opinion gives substantial weight to the dis-
parity between the percentage of majority-black House dis-
tricts in the legislature’s plan (14%) and the percentage of 
black voting-age Alabamians (27%), while the percentage in 
the  plaintiffs’  plan  (29%)  came  closer  to  that  27%  mark.  
See, e.g., id., at 946, 1016, 1018, 1025–1026; see also id., at 
958–959, 969, 976, 982, 991–992, 996–997.  Section 2 of the 
VRA, however, states expressly that no group has a right to 
representation “in numbers equal to their proportion in the 
population.”    52  U. S. C.  §10301(b).    This  provision  was  a 
critical component of the compromise that led to the adop-
tion  of  the  1982  amendments,  as  the  Court  unanimously 
agreed two Terms ago.  See Brnovich, 594 U. S., at ___, and 
n. 14 (slip op., at 22, and n. 14); id., at ___, n. 6 (KAGAN, J., 
dissenting) (slip op., at 19, n. 6).  The District Court’s rea-
soning contravened this statutory proviso.  See ante, at 11–
12, 28–30 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). 

III 
  The Court spends much of its opinion attacking what it 
takes  to  be  the  argument  that  Alabama  has  advanced  in 
this litigation.  I will not debate whether the Court’s char-
acterization of that argument is entirely correct, but as ap-
plied  to  the  analysis I have  just  set  out,  the Court’s  criti-
cisms miss the mark.