Page:Allen v. Milligan.pdf/19

12 etc., p. 253 (MSA). The plaintiffs adduced eleven illustrative maps—that is, example districting maps that Alabama could enact—each of which contained two majority-black districts that comported with traditional districting criteria. With respect to compactness, for example, the District Court explained that the maps submitted by one of plaintiffs’ experts, Dr. Moon Duchin, “perform[ed] generally better on average than” did HB1. 582 F. Supp. 3d, at 1009. A map offered by another of plaintiffs’ experts, Bill Cooper, produced districts roughly as compact as the existing plan. Ibid. And none of plaintiffs’ maps contained any “tentacles, appendages, bizarre shapes, or any other obvious irregularities that would make it difficult to find” them sufficiently compact. Id., at 1011. Plaintiffs’ maps also satisfied other traditional districting criteria. They contained equal populations, were contiguous, and respected existing political subdivisions, such as counties, cities, and towns. Id., at 1011, 1016. Indeed, some of plaintiffs’ proposed maps split the same number of county lines as (or even fewer county lines than) the State’s map. Id., at 1011–1012. We agree with the District Court, therefore, that plaintiffs’ illustrative maps “strongly suggest[ed] that Black voters in Alabama” could constitute a majority in a second, reasonably configured, district. Id., at 1010.

The State nevertheless argues that plaintiffs’ maps were not reasonably configured because they failed to keep together a traditional community of interest within Alabama. See, e.g., id., at 1012. A “community of interest,” according to Alabama’s districting guidelines, is an “area with recognized similarities of interests, including but not limited to ethnic, racial, economic, tribal, social, geographic, or historical identities.” Ibid. Alabama argues that the Gulf Coast region in the southwest of the State is such a community of interest, and that plaintiffs’ maps erred by separating it into two different districts. Ibid.

We do not find the State’s argument persuasive. Only