Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 88

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

43 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

657.    We  indulge  the  pernicious  tendency  of  assigning 
Americans  to  “creditor”  and  “debtor  race[s],”  even  to  the 
point  of  redistributing  political  power  on  that  basis.  
Adarand  Constructors,  Inc.  v.  Peña,  515  U. S.  200,  239 
(1995) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judg-
ment).  We ensure that the race-based redistricting we im-
pose on Alabama now will bear divisive consequences long 
into the future, just as the initial creation of District 7 seg-
regated Jefferson County for decades and minted the tem-
plate for  crafting  black  “political  homelands”  in  Alabama.  
Holder, 512 U. S., at 905 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).  We place 
States  in  the  impossible  position  of  having  to  weigh  just 
how much racial sorting is necessary to avoid the “compet-
ing hazards” of violating §2 and violating the Constitution.  
Abbott, 585 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4) (internal quotation 
marks omitted).  We have even put ourselves in the ridicu-
lous position of “assuming” that compliance with a statute 
can excuse disobedience to the Constitution.  Worst of all, 
by making it clear that there are political dividends to be 
gained in the discovery of new ways to sort voters along ra-
cial lines, we prolong immeasurably the day when the “sor-
did  business”  of  “divvying  us  up  by  race”  is  no  more.  
LULAC,  548  U. S.,  at  511  (ROBERTS,  C. J.,  concurring  in 
part,  concurring  in  judgment  in  part,  and  dissenting  in 
part).  To the extent §2 requires any of this, it is unconsti-
tutional. 
  The majority deflects this conclusion by appealing to two 
of our older Voting Rights Act cases, City of Rome v. United 
States, 446 U. S. 156 (1980), and South Carolina v. Katzen-
bach, 383 U. S. 301, that did not address §2 at all and, in-
deed, predate Congress’ adoption of the results test.  Ante, 
at 33–34.  That maneuver is untenable.  Katzenbach upheld 
§5’s  preclearance  requirements,  §4(b)’s  original  coverage 
formula,  and  other  related  provisions  aimed  at  “a  small 
number of States and political subdivisions” where “system-
atic resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment” had long been