Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 50.0

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

5 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

multimember  and  at-large  plans  must  limit challenges  to 
single-member districts with at least the same force, as “[i]t 
would be peculiar [if] a vote-dilution challenge to the (more 
dangerous)  multimember  district  require[d]  a  higher 
threshold showing than a vote-fragmentation challenge to 
a  single-member district.”   Id.,  at  40.   Growe  did  not con-
sider (or, thus, reject) an argument that §2 does not apply 
to single-member districts. 
  In any event, stare decisis should be no barrier to recon-
sidering a line of cases that “was based on a flawed method 
of statutory construction from its inception,” has proved in-
capable of principled application after nearly four decades 
of  experience,  and  puts  federal  courts  in  the  business  of 
“methodically carving the country into racially designated 
electoral  districts.”    Holder,  512  U. S.,  at  945  (opinion  of 
THOMAS,  J.).    This  Court  has  “never  applied  stare  decisis 
mechanically to prohibit overruling our earlier decisions de-
termining the meaning of statutes,” and it should not do so 
here.  Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 
U. S. 658, 695 (1978).  Stare decisis did not save “separate 
but equal,” despite its repeated reaffirmation in this Court 
and the pervasive reliance States had placed upon it for dec-
ades.  See, e.g., Brief for Appellees in Brown v. Board of Ed-
ucation, O. T. 1953, No. 1, pp. 18–30.  It should not rescue 
modern-day  forms  of  de  jure  racial  balkanization—which, 
as these cases show, is exactly where our §2 vote-dilution 
jurisprudence has led.4 
—————— 

4 JUSTICE KAVANAUGH’s partial concurrence emphasizes the supposedly 
enhanced stare decisis force of statutory-interpretation precedents.  See 
ante, at 1–2.  This emphasis is puzzling in several respects.  As an initial 
matter,  I  can  perceive  no  conceptual  “basis  for  applying  a  heightened 
version of stare decisis to statutory-interpretation decisions”; rather, “our 
judicial duty is to apply the law to the facts of the case, regardless of how 
easy it is for the law to change.”  Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. ___, 
___ (2019) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (slip op., at 14).  Nor does that ap-
proach  appear  to  have  any historical  foundation  in  judicial  practice at