Page:Allen v. Milligan.pdf/51

6 Even if §2 applies here, however, Alabama should prevail. The District Court found that Alabama’s congressional districting map “dilutes” black residents’ votes because, while it is possible to draw two majority-black districts, Alabama’s map only has one. But the critical question in all vote-dilution cases is: “Diluted relative to what benchmark?” Gonzalez v. Aurora, 535 F. 3d 594, 598 (CA7 2008) (Easterbrook, C. J.). Neither the District Court nor the majority has any defensible answer. The text of §2 and the logic of vote-dilution claims require a meaningfully race-neutral benchmark, and no race-neutral benchmark can justify the District Court’s finding of vote dilution in these cases. The only benchmark that can justify it—and the one that the District Court demonstrably applied—is