Page:Allen v. Milligan.pdf/108

12 The Court maintains that Alabama’s benchmark scheme would be unworkable because of the huge number of different race-neutral maps that could be drawn. As the Court notes, there are apparently numerous “competing metrics on the issue of compactness” alone, and each race-neutral computer program may assign different values to each traditional districting criterion. (internal quotation marks omitted).

My analysis does not create such problems. If a §2 plaintiff chooses to use a computer program to create an illustrative district, the court need ask only whether that program assigned race a predominant role.

The Court argues that Alabama’s focus on race-neutral maps cannot be squared with a totality-of-the-circumstances test because “Alabama suggests there is only one ‘circumstance[]’ that matters—how the State’s map stacks up relative to the benchmark” maps. My analysis, however, simply follows the Gingles framework, under which a court must first determine whether a §2 plaintiff has satisfied three “preconditions” before moving on to consider the remainder of relevant circumstances. See Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 40–41 (1993) (unless plaintiffs establish all three preconditions, there “neither has been a wrong nor can be a remedy”).

As noted, I would vacate and remand for the District Court to apply the correct understanding of Gingles in the first instance. Such a remand would require the District Court to determine whether the plaintiffs have shown that their illustrative maps did not give race a predominant role, and I will therefore comment briefly on my understanding of the relevant evidence in the record as it now stands.