Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 58

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

13 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

expand  District  2  east  and  west  to  encompass  predomi-
nantly  majority-black  areas  throughout  the  rural  “Black 
Belt.”  In the process, the plans are careful to leave enough 
of the Black Belt for District 7 to maintain its black major-
ity.  Then—and critically—the plans have District 2 extend 
a  southwestern  tendril  into  Mobile  County  to  capture  a 
dense, high-population majority-black cluster in urban Mo-
bile.8  See Supp. App. 184, 186, 188, 190, 193, 195, 197, 199, 
201, 203; see also id., at 149. 
  Those  black  Mobilians  currently  reside  in  the  urban 
heart of District 1.  For 50 years, District 1 has occupied the 
southwestern pocket  of  Alabama,  consisting  of  the State’s 
two populous Gulf Coast counties (Mobile and Baldwin) as 
well  as  some  less  populous  areas  to  the  immediate  north 
and east.  See id., at 205–211.  It is indisputable that the 
Gulf Coast region is the sort of community of interest that 
the Alabama Legislature might reasonably think a congres-
sional  district  should  be  built  around.    It  contains  Ala-
bama’s only coastline, its fourth largest city, and the Port 
of  Mobile.    Its  physical  geography  runs  north  along  the 
Alabama and Mobile Rivers, whose paths District 1 follows.  
Its economy is tied to the Gulf—to shipping, shipbuilding, 
tourism,  and  commercial  fishing.    See  Brief  for  Coastal 
Alabama Partnership as Amicus Curiae 13–15. 
  But, for the plaintiffs to secure their majority-black Dis-
trict 2, this longstanding, compact, and eminently sensible 
district must be radically transformed.  In the Gulf Coast 
region,  the  newly  drawn  District  1  would  retain  only  the 
majority-white  areas  that  District  2  did  not  absorb  on  its 
path to Mobile’s large majority-black population.  To make 

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8 I have included an Appendix, infra, illustrating the plaintiffs’ 11 pro-
posed maps.  The first 10 images display the “black-only” voting-age pop-
ulation of census-designated voting districts in relation to the maps’ hy-
pothetical  district  lines.    The  record  does  not  contain  a  similar 
illustration for the 11th map, but a simple visual comparison with the 
other maps suffices.