Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 86

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

41 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

circumstances inquiry, a court applying §2 can always em-
broider its vote-dilution determination with findings about 
past  or  present  unconstitutional  discrimination.    But  this 
possibility does nothing to heal either the fundamental con-
tradictions between §2 and the Constitution or its extreme 
overbreadth  relative  to  actual  constitutional  wrongs.    “A 
generalized assertion of past discrimination” cannot justify 
race-based  redistricting,  “because  it  provides  no  guidance 
for a legislative body to determine the precise scope of the 
injury it seeks to remedy.”  Shaw II, 517 U. S., at 909 (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted).  To justify a statute tend-
ing toward the proportional allocation of political power by 
race  throughout  the  Nation,  it  cannot  be  enough  that  a 
court can recite some indefinite quantum of discrimination 
in the relevant jurisdiction.  If it were, courts “could uphold 
[race-based]  remedies  that  are  ageless  in  their  reach  into 
the past, and timeless in their ability to affect the future.”  
Wygant  v.  Jackson  Bd.  of  Ed.,  476  U. S.  267,  276  (1986) 
(plurality  opinion).    That  logic  “would  effectively  assure 
that race will always be relevant in [redistricting], and that 
the ultimate goal of eliminating entirely from governmental 
decisionmaking such irrelevant factors as a human being’s 
race will never be achieved.”  Parents Involved, 551 U. S., 
at 730 (plurality opinion) (alteration and internal quotation 
marks omitted). 
  For an example of these baleful results, we need look no 
further  than  the  congressional  districts  at  issue  here.    In 
1992, Alabama and a group of §2 plaintiffs, whom a federal 
court chose to regard as the representatives “of all African-
American citizens of the State of Alabama,” stipulated that 
the State’s black population was “ ‘sufficiently compact and 
contiguous to comprise a single member significant major-
ity  (65%  or  more)  African  American  Congressional  dis-
trict,’ ” and that, “ ‘[c]onsequently,’ ” such a “ ‘district should 
be created.’ ” Wesch v. Hunt, 785 F. Supp. 1491, 1493, 1498 
(SD  Ala.).   Accepting  that stipulation,  the  court reworked