Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 20

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

13 

Opinion of the Court 

two witnesses testified that the Gulf Coast was a commu-
nity  of  interest.    Id.,  at  1015.   The testimony provided  by 
one  of  those  witnesses  was  “partial,  selectively  informed, 
and  poorly  supported.”    Ibid.    The  other  witness,  mean-
while, justified keeping the Gulf Coast together “simply” to 
preserve “political advantage[ ]”: “You start splitting coun-
ties,”  he  testified,  “and  that  county  loses  its  influence.  
That’s why I don’t want Mobile County to be split.”  Id., at 
990,  1015.    The  District  Court  understandably  found  this 
testimony insufficient to sustain Alabama’s “overdrawn ar-
gument that there can be no legitimate reason to split” the 
Gulf Coast region.  Id., at 1015. 
  Even if the Gulf Coast did constitute a community of in-
terest,  moreover,  the  District  Court  found  that  plaintiffs’ 
maps  would  still  be  reasonably  configured  because  they 
joined together a different community of interest called the 
Black  Belt.    Id.,  at  1012–1014.   Named for  its  fertile  soil, 
the  Black  Belt  contains  a  high proportion  of  black  voters, 
who  “share  a  rural  geography,  concentrated  poverty,  une-
qual  access  to  government  services,  . . .  lack  of  adequate 
healthcare,” and a lineal connection to “the many enslaved 
people brought there to work in the antebellum period.”  Id., 
at 1012–1013; see also 1 App. 299–304.  The District Court 
concluded—correctly, under our precedent—that it did not 
have  to  conduct  a  “beauty  contest[ ]”  between  plaintiffs’ 
maps and the State’s.  There would be a split community of 
interest in both.  582 F. Supp. 3d, at 1012 (quoting Bush v. 
Vera, 517 U. S. 952, 977–978 (1996) (plurality opinion)). 
  The State also makes a related argument based on “core 
retention”—a term that refers to the proportion of districts 
that remain when a State transitions from one districting 
plan to another.  See, e.g., Brief for Alabama 25, 61.  Here, 
by largely mirroring Alabama’s 2011 districting plan, HB1 
performs well on the core retention metric.  Plaintiffs’ illus-
trative  plans,  by  contrast,  naturally  fare  worse  because 
they change where the 2011 district lines were drawn.  See