30
ALLEN v. MILLIGAN
Opinion of the Court
even more demanding than the intent test Congress jettisoned. Demonstrating discriminatory intent, we have long
held, “does not require a plaintiff to prove that the challenged action rested solely on racially discriminatory purpose[ ].” Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 265 (1977) (emphasis added);
see also Reno, 520 U. S., at 488. Alabama’s proposed approach stands in sharp contrast to all this, injecting into the
effects test of §2 an evidentiary standard that even our purposeful discrimination cases eschew.
C
Alabama finally asserts that the Court should outright
stop applying §2 in cases like these because the text of §2
does not apply to single-member redistricting and because
§2 is unconstitutional as the District Court applied it here.
We disagree on both counts.
Alabama first argues that §2 does not apply to singlemember redistricting. Echoing JUSTICE THOMAS’s concurrence in Holder v. Hall, Alabama reads §2’s reference to
“standard, practice, or procedure” to mean only the “methods for conducting a part of the voting process that might
. . . be used to interfere with a citizen’s ability to cast his
vote.” 512 U. S., at 917–918 (opinion concurring in judgment). Examples of covered activities would include “registration requirements, . . . the locations of polling places, the
times polls are open, the use of paper ballots as opposed to
voting machines, and other similar aspects of the voting
process.” Id., at 922. But not “a single-member districting
system or the selection of one set of districting lines over
another.” Id., at 923.
This understanding of §2 cannot be reconciled with our
precedent. As recounted above, we have applied §2 to
States’ districting maps in an unbroken line of decisions
stretching four decades. See supra, at 11; see also Brnovich,
594 U. S., at ___, n. 5 (slip op., at 7, n. 5) (collecting cases).
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents