Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 62

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

17 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

  Nor could such a plan be explained by supposed respect 
for the Black Belt.  For present purposes, I accept the Dis-
trict Court’s finding that the Black Belt is a significant com-
munity of interest.  But the entire black population of the 
Black Belt—some 300,000 black residents, see Supp. App. 
33—is too small to provide a majority in a single congres-
sional district, let alone two.11  The black residents needed 
to populate majority-black versions of Districts 2 and 7 are 
overwhelmingly concentrated in the urban counties of Jef-
ferson (i.e., the Birmingham metropolitan area, with about 
290,000 black residents), Mobile (about 152,000 black resi-
dents),  and  Montgomery  (about  134,000  black  residents).  
Id., at 83.  Of the three, only Montgomery County is in the 

—————— 
capture black Mobilians are visually striking and are easily recognized 
as  a  racial  grab against  the backdrop  of  the  State’s  demography.    The 
District 7 “finger,” which encircles the black population of the Birming-
ham metropolitan area in order to separate them from their white neigh-
bors and link them with black rural areas in the west of the State, also 
stands out to the naked eye.  The District Court disregarded the “finger” 
because it has been present in every districting plan since 1992, includ-
ing the State’s latest enacted plan.  Singleton v. Merrill, 582 F. Supp. 3d 
924, 1011 (ND Ala. 2022) (per curiam).  But that reasoning would allow 
plaintiffs to bootstrap one racial gerrymander as a reason for permitting 
a second.  Because the question is not before us, I express no opinion on 
whether existing District 7 is constitutional as enacted by the State.  It 
is indisputable, however, that race predominated in the original creation 
of the district, see n. 7, supra, and it is plain that the primary race-neu-
tral justification for the district today must be the State’s legitimate in-
terest  in  “preserving  the  cores  of  prior  districts”  and  the  fact  that  the 
areas constituting District 7’s core have been grouped together for dec-
ades.  Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 740 (1983); see also id., at 758 
(Stevens, J., concurring) (explaining that residents of a political unit “of-
ten  develop  a  community  of  interest”).    The  plaintiffs’  maps,  however, 
necessarily would require the State to assign little weight to core reten-
tion  with  respect  to other  districts.    There  could  then be  no  principled 
race-neutral justification for prioritizing core retention only when it pre-
served  an  existing  majority-black  district,  while  discarding  it  when  it 
stood in the way of creating a new one. 

11 The  equal-population  baseline  for  Alabama’s  seven  districts  is 

717,154 persons per district.