Thomas, J., dissenting
black voting-age population above 40%. Id., at 54, 67, 71–72. In a similar vein, Dr. Duchin testified about an academic study in which she had randomly “generated 2 million districting plans for Alabama” using a race-neutral algorithm that gave priority to compactness and contiguity. 2 App. 710; see Duchin & Spencer 765. She “found some [plans] with one majority-black district, but never found a second … majority-black district in 2 million attempts.” 2 App. 710. “[T]hat it is hard to draw two majority-black districts by accident,” Dr. Duchin explained, “show[ed] the importance of doing so on purpose.” Id., at 714.[1]
The plurality of Justices who join Part III–B–I of The Chief Justice’s opinion appear to agree that the plaintiffs could not prove the first precondition of their statewide vote-dilution claim—that black Alabamians could constitute a majority in two “reasonably configured” districts, Wisconsin Legislature, 595 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 3)—by drawing an illustrative map in which race was predominant. See ante, at 25. That should be the end of these cases, as the illustrative maps here are palpable racial gerrymanders. The plaintiffs’ experts clearly applied “express racial target[s]” by setting out to create 50%-plus majority-black districts in both Districts 2 and 7. Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 580 U. S. 178, 192 (2017). And it is impossible to conceive of the State adopting the illustrative maps without pursuing the same racially motivated goals. Again, the maps’ key design features are: (1) making District 2 majority-black by connecting black
- ↑ The majority notes that this study used demographic data from the 2010 census, not the 2020 one. That is irrelevant, since the black population share in Alabama changed little (from 26.8% to 27.16%) between the two censuses. To think that this minor increase might have changed Dr. Duchin’s results would be to entirely miss her point: that proportional representation for any minority, unless achieved “by design,” is a statistical anomaly in almost all single-member-districting systems. Duchin & Spencer 764.
