Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 83.0

38 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

must ensure that its districting plan includes that number of 
majority-minority districts “or something quite close.”20  582 
F. Supp. 3d, at 1033.  Thus construed and applied, §2 is not 
congruent and proportional to any provisions of the Recon-
struction Amendments. 
  To  determine  the  congruence  and  proportionality  of  a 
measure, we must begin by “identify[ing] with some preci-
sion the scope of the constitutional right at issue.”  Board of 
Trustees  of  Univ.  of  Ala.  v.  Garrett,  531  U. S.  356,  365 
(2001).  The Reconstruction Amendments “forbi[d], so far as 
civil and political rights are concerned, discrimination . . . 
against any citizen because of his race,” ensuring that “[a]ll 
citizens  are  equal  before  the  law.”    Gibson  v.  Mississippi, 
162 U. S. 565, 591 (1896) (Harlan, J.).  They dictate “that 
the Government must treat citizens as individuals, not as 
simply components of a racial, religious, sexual or national 
class.”  Miller, 515 U. S., at 911 (internal quotation marks 
omitted).    These  principles  are  why  the  Constitution  pre-
sumptively forbids race-predominant districting, “even for 
remedial purposes.”  Shaw I, 509 U. S., at 657. 
  These  same  principles  foreclose  a  construction  of  the 
Amendments that would entitle members of racial minori-
ties,  qua  racial  minorities,  to  have  their  preferred  candi-
dates  win  elections.    Nor  do  the  Amendments  limit  the 
rights of members of a racial majority to support their pre-
ferred candidates—regardless of whether minorities prefer 
different candidates and of whether “the majority, by virtue 
of  its  numerical  superiority,”  regularly  prevails.    Gingles, 
478 U. S., at 48.  Nor, finally, do the Amendments establish 
a norm of proportional control of elected offices on the basis 
of race.  See Parents Involved, 551 U. S., at 730–731 (plu-
rality opinion); Shaw I, 509 U. S., at 657.  And these notions 
—————— 

20 This formulation does not specifically account for the District Court’s 
findings under the Senate factors, which, as I have explained, lack any 
traceable logical connection to the finding of a districting wrong or the 
need for a districting remedy.