Shaw v. Hunt

AMENDED OPINION

PHILLIPS, Senior Circuit Judge:

This action, brought by several white citizens and registered voters of the State of North Carolina against various state and federal officials, challenges the constitutionality of the congressional redistricting 1 plan (the Plan) adopted by the North Carolina General Assembly following the 1990 decennial census. 2 Plaintiffs now claim principally that the General Assembly’s redistricting plan violates their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because it intentionally includes one or more congressional districts constructed along racial lines in order to assure the election of two African-American members of Congress, and is not narrowly tailored to further any compelling governmental interest. We ini *417 tially dismissed that claim under Rule 12(b)(6), Shaw v. Barr, 808 F.Supp. 461 (E.D.N.C.1992), but the Supreme Court reversed and remanded, Shaw v. Reno, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 2816 , 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993) (Shaw). On remand, we find that the Plan’s lines were deliberately drawn to produce one or more districts of a certain racial composition and that it is thus a “racial gerrymander” subject to strict scrutiny under Shaw. But we nonetheless conclude that the Plan passes constitutional muster under that standard, because it is narrowly tailored to further the state’s compelling interest in complying with the Voting Rights Act. We therefore hold that the Plan does not violate the plaintiffs’ Equal Protection rights in the manner alleged, and we give judgment for the defendants accordingly.

I.

General Background and Procedural History

As a result of population increases reflected in the 1990 decennial census, North Carolina became entitled to an additional seat in the United States House of Representatives, bringing its total number of seats to twelve. In July of 1991, the North Carolina General Assembly therefore enacted legislation to redistrict the state into twelve congressional districts. 1991 N.C.Sess.Laws Ch. 601. This redistricting plan included one district, the First, in which African-Americans constituted majorities of both the registered voters and the voting age population of the district. This proposed majority-minority district 3 was located in the northeastern part of the state.

Because 40 of North Carolina’s 100 counties are covered by the provisions of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U.S.C. § 1973c, 4 the state submitted its proposed redistricting plan to the United States Attorney General for preelearance. On December 18, 1991, the Attorney General interposed formal objection to the proposed plan, finding that the state had not met its § 5 burden of showing that the plan was free of racially discriminatory purpose.

Under § 5, the state could have challenged the Attorney General’s objection to its original redistricting plan by filing a declaratory judgment action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. After debate, however, it elected not to do this, but instead to revise its original plan in order to meet the Attorney General’s objection and secure his approval. In January of 1992, the General Assembly therefore convened in special session and enacted a revised redistricting plan. 1991 N.C.Extra Sess.Laws Ch. 7. This revised plan, which is the Plan under attack here, creates two districts in which African-Americans constitute majorities of both the registered voters and the voting age populations. One of these majority-minority districts, the First, is centered in the rural northeastern part of the state, where a large, dense concentration of African-Americans has long existed, but contains extensions that reach deep into the rural southeastern part of the state. The other, the Twelfth, is located not in the southern part of the state, as the Justice Department had suggested, but runs diagonally across the Piedmont in a jagged band that stretches some 160 miles from Durham to Gastonia, generally following the route of Interstate Highway 85, but with several extensions into the historic “black sections” of the Piedmont cities that he along its course. The twelve districts created by the Plan are as equally populated as is mathematically possible, 5 but their configurations are such that a number of pre *418 cincts, townships, cities and counties of the state are split among two or even three congressional districts.

The state submitted its revised Plan to the Attorney General under § 5, and the Attorney General precleared it on February 6, 1992. Almost immediately, the Republican Party of North Carolina and several individual voters associated with it filed suit in federal district court challenging the revised Plan under various provisions of the federal Constitution. Their primary claim was that the Plan violated their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because its lines were deliberately drawn to favor Democratic incumbents at the expense of Republican political interests. On April 16, 1992, a three-judge district court dismissed that claim under Rule 12(b)(6), holding that the plaintiffs had not, and could not, allege that the Plan had the requisite discriminatory effect on an identifiable political group needed to state a valid political gerrymandering claim under Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109 , 106 S.Ct. 2797 , 92 L.Ed.2d 85 (1986). Pope v. Blue, 809 F.Supp. 392 (W.D.N.C.1992). The Supreme Court summarily affirmed. 506 U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 30 , 121 L.Ed.2d 3 (1992).

Shortly after the complaint in Pope v. Blue was filed, plaintiffs herein, five white residents of Durham County, North Carolina who are registered to vote in that county, filed this action challenging the constitutionality of the same congressional redistrieting plan. Named as defendants in this action were the Governor, the Board of Elections, and various high-ranking officials of the state of North Carolina (the state defendants), as well as two federal officials who had participated in the § 5 preclearance process, the United States Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division (the federal defendants).

Plaintiffs’ principal constitutional claim against the state defendants in this action was that the General Assembly’s revised Plan violated their rights under the Equal Protection Clause. They based that claim on allegations that the Plan deliberately “creates two Congressional Districts in which a majority of African-American voters was concentrated arbitrarily — without regard to any other considerations, such as compactness, contiguousness, geographical boundaries, or political subdivisions,” with the purpose of “ereat[ing] Congressional Districts along racial lines” and assuring the election of two African-American Representatives. Amended Complaint ¶ 36(A). Two theories of Equal Protection violation were advanced. First, that the deliberate drawing of district lines so as to create one or more districts in which a particular race has a majority, even if required by the Voting Rights Act, was per se unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. Alternatively, that even if such race-based redistrieting was not always unconstitutional, the specific redistrieting plan at issue here was, because its lines did not observe such traditional districting considerations as geographic compactness, contiguity, and communities of interest, but were instead improperly “gerrymandered” to create two majority-minority districts and insure proportional representation of African-American citizens in North Carolina’s congressional delegation.

In addition, plaintiffs alleged that the Plan violated rights secured to them by §§ 2 and 4 of Article I of the Constitution, the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment. Finally, they made a two-pronged attack on the constitutionality of the federal defendants’ conduct in refusing to preclear a congressional redistrieting plan for North Carolina that did not contain two majority-minority districts, arguing both that the federal defendants had misinterpreted amended § 2 of the Voting Rights Act and in consequence applied it unconstitutionally, and, in the alternative, that if amended § 2 in fact required the creation of two majority-minority districts in North Carolina, it was itself unconstitutional.

As relief, plaintiffs sought a declaration that the Plan was unconstitutional; preliminary and permanent injunctive relief against its use by the appropriate state defendants to conduct congressional elections; a declaration that the federal defendants had acted unconstitutionally in demanding that North Carolina adopt a congressional redistrieting *419 plan with two majority-minority districts; and an injunction restraining the federal defendants from taking any action requiring North Carolina to enact such a plan.

Following designation of this three-judge court, both sets of defendants filed motions to dismiss. We dismissed the claims against the federal defendants, concluding that we lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over those claims. 6 808 F.Supp. at 466-67 (majority op.); id. at 474 (Voorhees, C.J., concurring in relevant part).

By a divided vote, we dismissed the claims against the state defendants as well. We were in agreement that to the extent those claims were based on §§ 2 and 4 of Art. I and the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, they failed to state a legally cognizable claim. We were also agreed that plaintiffs’ Fifteenth Amendment claim was essentially subsumed within their related claim under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that to the extent plaintiffs’ Equal Protection claim alleged that race-based redistricting was always unconstitutional, even when it was required by the Voting Rights Act, it was foreclosed by United Jewish Organizations, Inc. v. Carey, 430 U.S. 144 , 97 5.Ct. 996, 51 L.Ed.2d 229 (1977) (UJO). 808 F.Supp. at 470-72 (majority op.); id. at 473-74 (Voorhees, C.J., concurring in relevant part). We were divided as a court, however, on the proper disposition of plaintiffs’ alternative Equal Protection claim: that even if race-based redistricting was not always unconstitutional, the specific redistricting plan at issue here was, because its lines were drawn to create two majority-minority districts and assure the election of two African-American members of Congress, without regard to such traditional districting considerations as geographical compactness, contiguity, and communities of interest.

Two of us thought UJO disposed of this claim as well. Id. at 472-73 (majority op.). We read the various opinions in UJO to stand for the proposition that a redistricting scheme violates the Equal Protection rights of white voters only if it is “adopted with the purpose and effect of discriminating against white voters ... on account of their race.” Id. at 472 , citing UJO, 430 U.S. at 165-68 , 97 S.Ct. at 1009-11 (plurality opinion); id. at 179-80 , 97 S.Ct. at 1016-17 (Stewart, J., concurring). We concluded that plaintiffs had not alleged the requisite discriminatory purpose, because they had not alleged that the Plan was intended to disadvantage white voters — that is, to deprive them of a fair opportunity, on a state-wide basis, to participate in the political process and to elect candidates of their choice — but only to give effect to African-American voting strength in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Id. at 472-73. We also concluded that plaintiffs had not, and could not, allege the requisite discriminatory effect, because they could not establish that the Plan unfairly diluted or canceled out white voting strength and led to proportional underrepresentation of white voters on a statewide basis. Id. at 473.

Judge Voorhees disagreed with this analysis. He read the plurality opinion in UJO to authorize the states to deliberately create majority-minority districts in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act only when they employ traditional districting principles such as compactness, contiguity, and communities of interest, id. at 475-77 (Voorhees, C.J., dissenting in relevant part), which he believed were “of constitutional dimension,” id. at 480. The Plan’s alleged failure to respect these principles, in his view, “augur[ed] a constitutionally suspect, and potentially unlawful, intent” on the part of the General *420 Assembly sufficient to state an Equal Protection claim. Id. at 477.

Plaintiffs appealed our dismissal of their claims to the United States Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that plaintiffs had stated a claim under the Equal Protection Clause by alleging that the General Assembly had adopted a redistrieting plan that was “so irrational on its face that it can be understood only as an effort to segregate voters into separate voting districts because of their race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification.” Shaw v. Reno, — U.S. -, - 113 S.Ct. 2816, 2832 , 125 L.Ed.2d 511 (1993). If this “allegation of racial gerrymandering remains uneontradicted,” the Court held, “the District Court further must determine whether the North Carolina plan is narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest.” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2832 . The Court therefore reversed our dismissal of the plaintiffs’ Equal Protection claim and remanded that claim to this court for further consideration. Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2832 . The Court expressly affirmed our dismissal of the claims against the federal defendants. Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2823 . It expressed no view on the validity of plaintiffs’ claims against the state defendants under Art. 1, § 2; Art. I, § 4, the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment, id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2832 , leaving our dismissal of those claims undisturbed but, because unreviewed, still open for possible reconsideration by this court or, if not reconsidered, for possible later review by that Court. In this posture of the case, our consideration has been confined on remand to the one claim found legally viable by the Supreme Court: the claim of improper “racial gerrymandering” in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

Following the remand of that claim for further consideration, the state defendants filed an answer to the amended complaint, in which they admitted that one of their purposes in enacting the Plan was to respond to the objections interposed by the Attorney General in the § 5 preelearance process by creating two majority-minority districts. Answer to Amended Complaint at ¶ 17; see id. at 6. But they contended that the Plan was not a “racial gerrymander” subject to strict scrutiny under Shaw, because it did not segregate voters into separate voting districts on the basis of race, but actually created integrated districts, and because its lines were the product of legitimate non-raeial redistricting considerations, including compliance with constitutional “one person, one vote” requirements; the creation of communities of interest based on shared historical, social, and economic interests; and the protection of incumbents. Id. at 6. Alternatively, they asserted that even if the Plan was subject to strict scrutiny, it was nonetheless constitutional, because it was narrowly tailored to further the state’s compelling interests in complying with the preclearance requirements of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act, avoiding a violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and eradicating the effects of past racial discrimination in the state. Id. at 7.

After the state defendants filed their answer, we permitted twenty-two persons registered to vote in North Carolina, both African-American and white, to intervene as defendants in support of the Plan (the defendant-intervenors). We also permitted eleven persons registered to vote as Republicans in North Carolina — including Art Pope, who had been the lead plaintiff in the earlier political gerrymandering challenge to the Plan — to intervene as plaintiffs (the plaintiffintervenors), on the condition that they adopt as their own the amended complaint filed by the original plaintiffs. 7 Finally, we permitted the United States, on its motion, to appear as amicus curiae by filing briefs in support of the legal positions of the state defendants.

After approximately four months of discovery, the plaintiff-intervenors filed motions, later joined by the original plaintiffs, for a preliminary injunction against further election proceedings under the existing congressional redistrieting Plan and a temporary *421 restraining order and preliminary injunction to extend the filing period for candidates for the 1994 congressional elections. We denied both the TRO application and the motion for preliminary injunction, the latter after hearing oral argument.

Following a final pre-trial conference, trial to the three-judge court was held from March 28,1994 through April 4,1994, pursuant to a duly adopted pre-trial order. At trial, the parties presented, and the court received, extensive oral and documentary evidence. 8 We deferred decision pending the parties’ submission of proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, briefing, and concluding oral arguments of counsel, which we heard on April 18, 1994.

Having considered the evidence, the memoranda of law submitted by the parties, the stipulations of fact, the proposed findings and conclusions, and the oral arguments of counsel, we now make the following findings of fact and conclusions of law, pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.Proc. 52(a), prefaced by a discussion of our understanding of the governing law and its application in this context.

II.

General Legal Principles

We begin by setting out our understanding of the nature of the Equal Protection claim recognized by the Supreme Court in this case, to serve as a framework for our findings of fact and conclusions of law. In the process, we consider conflicting contentions of the parties respecting various aspects of the claim.

A. General Nature of the Claim

At the outset of this action, plaintiffs’ Equal Protection challenge to this congressional redistricting plan took two alternative forms. First, that any state redistricting plan that deliberately creates districts of a certain racial composition necessarily violates the Equal Protection Clause, regardless of its justification. Second, that even if such race-based redistricting is not unconstitutional in all circumstances, this particular redistricting plan is, because its lines do not observe traditional districting considerations such as geographical compactness, contiguity, and communities of interest, but are improperly “gerrymandered” to create two majority-minority districts and insure proportional representation of African-American citizens in North Carolina’s congressional delegation.

The Supreme Court found the first claim foreclosed by its prior precedents, at least when the legislature’s purpose was to comply with the remedial requirements of the Voting Rights Act. See — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2824 (reaffirming that race-conscious redistricting, like other forms of race-conscious state decisionmaking, is “not always unconstitutional”). The Court found legally viable, however, plaintiffs’ alternative Equal Protection claim, which it characterized as a claim that the state’s redistricting plan, though facially race-neutral, was “so irrational on its face that it can be understood only as an effort to segregate voters into separate voting districts because of their race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification.” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2832 . It is only that Equal Protection claim which plaintiffs and their supporting intervenors now press on remand.

As we understand it, the claim is a newly recognized one in voting rights jurisprudence. Until Shaw, the Supreme Court had recognized only two grounds on which a redistricting plan might be subject to challenge under the Equal Protection Clause. The first, based on the “one person one vote” principle, was that its districts were not equal in population, so that the votes cast by individual voters in some districts had less weight than those cast by voters in other districts. See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 , 84 S.Ct. 1362 , 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964). The second was that though its districts were of equal population, they were drawn with the purpose and had the effect of unfairly “diluting” or canceling out the voting *422 strength of an identified group of voters— that is, of so diminishing their ability to influence the political process as essentially to shut them out of it, as opposed to merely making it more difficult for them to elect representatives of their choice in particular districts. See White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 765-66 , 98 S.Ct. 2332 , 2339-10, 37 L.Ed.2d 314 (1973) (racial and ethnic group); Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U.S. 124, 153-55 , 91 S.Ct. 1858, 1874-75 , 29 L.Ed.2d 363 (1971) (racial group); Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109, 131-33 , 106 S.Ct. 2797, 2809-11 , 92 L.Ed.2d 85 (1986) (plurality opinion) (political group); id. at 151-52 , 91 S.Ct. at 1873 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment). 9 Until Shaw, no majority opinion of the Supreme Court had held that a state redistricting plan that did not cause concrete, material harm to the voting strength of an identifiable group of citizens in one of these two ways could nonetheless be challenged under the Equal Protection Clause on the ground that it impermissibly took race into account in drawing district lines; the only intimations to that effect had come in separate opinions of single justices. 10 And a majority of the Supreme Court had squarely held that the Equal Protection Clause did not prevent a jurisdiction subject to § 5 of the Voting Rights Act from deliberately creating districts in which racial minorities were a majority, so long as it did so with the purpose of complying with the Voting Rights Act and did not unfairly dilute or cancel out the voting strength of any other racial group. UJO v. Carey, 430 U.S. 144, 161-68 , 97 S.Ct. 996, 1007-11 , 51 L.Ed.2d 229 (1977) (plurality opinion); at 179-80, 97 S.Ct. at 1016-17 (Stewart, J., concurring in the judgment); see also Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547, 584 , 110 S.Ct. 2997, 3019 , 111 L.Ed.2d 445 (1990) (“a State subject to § 5 of the Voting Rights Act ... may ‘deliberately creat[e] or preserv[e]’ black majorities in particular districts in order to ensure that its reapportionment plan complies with [the Voting Rights Act]”) (quoting UJO, 430 U.S. at 161 , 97 S.Ct. at 1007-08 ).

The Supreme Court’s decision in Shaw has now recognized a third way, characterized by the Court as analytically distinct from the two earlier recognized, in which a state redistricting plan might offend the Equal Protection Clause. It is that the plan was designed “to separate voters into different districts on the basis of race,” without “sufficient justification.” Shaw, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2828 . Such race-based redistricting legislation, said the Court, presents the same dangers as any other state law that deliberately classifies citizens by race: it threatens “to stigmatize individuals by reason of their membership in a racial group,” “to incite racial hostilities],” and “to stimulate our society’s latent race-consciousness.” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2824-25 (internal quotations omitted). It should therefore be subject to “the same close scrutiny that we give other state laws that classify citizens by racé,” id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2825 ; that is, be upheld only if “narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest.” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2832 . The Court made clear that strict scrutiny must be applied even to those race-based redistricting schemes that purport to have been enacted with the “benign” purpose of giving effect to minority voting strength in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act, “because without *423 [strict scrutiny], a court cannot determine whether or not the discrimination truly is ‘benign.’ ” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2830 ; see id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2826 (“district lines obviously drawn for the purpose of separating voters by race require careful scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause regardless of the motivations underlying their adoption”). Finally, the Court held that “a plaintiff challenging a [state redistricting] plan under the Equal Protection Clause may state a claim by alleging that the legislation, though race-neutral on its face, rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to separate voters into different districts on the basis of race, and that the separation lacks sufficient justification.” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2828 . Because plaintiffs had made such an allegation in their Amended Complaint, the Court concluded, they had stated a valid Equal Protection claim.

This states our understanding of the general nature of the Equal Protection claim recognized by the Court in this case and remanded to us for trial. It is, in effect, the same basic claim that the Court has recognized in other contexts in which race-based remedial measures, or “affirmative action,” undertaken by state actors have been challenged, typically by members of the majority race claiming “reverse discrimination.” See Regents of the Univ. of Calif. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 , 98 S.Ct. 2733 , 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978) (admission to public institution of higher learning); Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267 , 106 S.Ct. 1842 , 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986) (public employment); and City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 , 109 S.Ct. 706 , 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989) (government contracting). 11 That being its general nature, there remain significant problems concerning how the substantive elements and procedural incidents of such a claim are to be transposed to the unique voting rights context: specifically, the problems of standing; the nature of the showing required to trigger strict scrutiny; the allocation of the burden of proof at the strict scrutiny stage; the types of compelling state interests that might justify such race-based action; and the meaning of narrowly tailored in this context. On all of these matters, the parties are in flat disagreement. We now turn to them.

B. Standing

Defendant-intervenors contend that the action should be dismissed for lack of standing. They point out that the Supreme Court’s decision in this case technically held only that, as a matter of substantive Equal Protection doctrine, plaintiffs could state a valid Equal Protection challenge to the Plan without alleging that it had the purpose and effect of diluting their group voting strength. They emphasize that the Court did not hold that plaintiffs had standing to assert such a claim, nor did it purport to relieve them from the obligation to satisfy the normal requirements for standing: a showing that they have personally suffered, or are in immediate danger of suffering, some actual “injury in fact” that is “fairly traceable” to the challenged conduct and “likely to be redressed” by the relief they seek. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. -, -, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136 , 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). And they argue that plaintiffs have now failed to prove that the Plan has caused them the sort of “injury in fact” required to give them standing to challenge it. They concede that the clear implication, if not the actual holding, of the Supreme Court’s decision is that plaintiffs need not show that the Plan has caused injury to their voting strength. But they read the Court’s discussion of the other ways in which race-based districting legislation can injure voters, — U.S. at ---, 113 S.Ct. at 2827-28 , as implying that a voter has standing to challenge such legislation only if he can show that it has actually injured his political interests in one of two other ways: (i) by causing the representative elected from his district to represent only the interests of a particular racial group of which he is not a member; or (ii) by exacerbating existing patterns of racial bloc voting by a racial' group of which he is not a member. While they concede that the Supreme Court’s decision can be read to hold *424 that plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged one or both of these injuries to establish standing for purposes of Rule 12(b)(6), they say it cannot be read to foreclose the possibility that this action might yet be dismissed for lack of standing, should plaintiffs fail to prove those allegations at trial. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2136-37 (while generalized allegations of injury resulting from the challenged conduct may be adequate to establish standing at the pleading stage, when the court is obliged to accept all material allegations of the complaint as true, they will not suffice to carry plaintiffs burden of proof on standing at trial).

Defendant-intervenors’ argument is not without some force. The federal courts are not a general forum for the airing of any and all complaints a citizen may have about the way in which his government conducts its business, Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 112 , 103 S.Ct. 1660, 1670-71 , 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), and they do not have “an unconditioned authority to determine the constitutionality of legislative or executive acts.” Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United, 454 U.S. 464, 471 , 102 S.Ct. 752, 757-58 , 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982). An unbroken line of Supreme Court decisions establishes that a federal court may decide the merits of a constitutional challenge to a legislative act only when asked to do so by a party who has personally suffered, or is in immediate danger of suffering, some actual “injury in fact” that is “fairly traceable” to the challenged act and “likely to be redressed” by the relief he seeks. Lujan , 504 U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2136 ; Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 750 , 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3324 , 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984); Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 472 , 102 S.Ct. at 758-59 ; Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 38 , 96 S.Ct. 1917, 1924 , 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498-99 , 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2204-05 , 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975); Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 97 , 88 S.Ct. 1942, 1951 , 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968). These three elements — injury in fact, causation, and redressability — are the “irreducible constitutional minimum” for standing, derived directly from the Article III case-or-controversy limitation on the federal judicial power. Northeastern Florida Contractors v. Jacksonville, — U.S. -, ---, 113 S.Ct. 2297, 2301-02 , 124 L.Ed.2d 586 (1993); Lujan , 504 U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 2136 . As such, they are “an indispensable part of the plaintiffs case,” which he must prove at trial “with the [same] manner and degree of evidence as any other matter on which [he] bears the burden of proof,” id. at-, 112 S.Ct. at 2136 , before he is entitled to have the court rule on the merits of his claim. See Warth, 422 U.S. at 499 , 95 S.Ct. at 2205 ; Allen, 468 U.S. at 750 , 104 S.Ct. at 3324 .

At first blush, it would appear that plaintiffs have not even alleged, much less proved, the sort of “injury in fact” required by this line of decisions. The Supreme Court has emphasized that such a injury must be “concrete” in both a qualitative and a temporal sense, Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155 , 110 S.Ct. 1717, 1722-23 , 109 L.Ed.2d 135 (1990), which means that it must be both “distinct and palpable” in nature, Warth, 422 U.S. at 501 , 95 S.Ct. at 2206 , as opposed to “[a]bstract,” O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 494 , 94 S.Ct. 669, 675 , 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1974), and “real and immediate,” as opposed to “conjectural” or “hypothetical,” Lyons, 461 U.S. at 101-02 , 103 S.Ct. at 1664-65 . See generally Whitmore, 495 U.S. at 155 , 110 S.Ct. at 1722-23 . It surely is arguable that the injuries plaintiffs allege the Plan has inflicted upon them do not satisfy these criteria. Their primary claim is that the Plan “injures” them — as well as all other citizens, residents, and registered voters of the State of North Carolina — because it threatens to perpetuate archaic racial stereotypes and to increase racial divisions in society. See Plaintiffs’ Responses to D efendant-Intervenors’ First Set of Interrogatories, Responses Nos. 1 and 2. In addition, the two plaintiffs who reside in districts in which African-Americans are a majority under the Plan— Shaw and Shimm — claim that it “injures” them in another way, by causing them to doubt the quality of their representation in Congress and making them feel “disenfranchised.” See Shimm testimony, Tr. pp. 1084-93. All of these expressly claimed harms could be thought abstract, theoretical, and merely speculative, not concrete and palpable; all have the marks of the sort of “injury *425 in perception” rather than “in fact,” Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400, 426-27 , 111 S.Ct. 1364, 1379-80 , 113 L.Ed.2d 411 (1991) (Scalia, J., dissenting), that the Supreme Court has previously found insufficient to confer Article III standing.

Nevertheless, as we now understand the nature of the claim, we believe the Supreme Court would hold that the plaintiffs have adequately established their standing to assert it. That claim, as indicated, is that the Plan violates the Equal Protection Clause simply because it “classifies” voters — that is, assigns them to particular voting districts— on the basis of their race, without sufficiently compelling justification. In other contexts, the Supreme Court has recognized that a state’s use of racial classifications necessarily inflicts “stigmatic” injury, Allen, 468 U.S. at 755 , 104 S.Ct. at 3326-27 , which, though “abstract” in the sense that it cannot easily be quantified, is sufficient “injury in fact” to give any citizen who has been “personally denied equal treatment” by such a classification standing to challenge it under the Equal Protection Clause. See Bakke, 438 U.S. at 281 n. 14, 98 S.Ct. at 2743 n. 14 (opinion of Powell, J., joined by four other justices) (white male applicant to state medical school has standing to challenge admission program that sets aside a certain number of places in the class for minority applicants, even though he cannot show that he would have been admitted but for that set-aside program); Northeastern Florida Contractors , — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2303 (white contractors have standing to challenge municipal ordinance that sets aside a certain percentage of city contracts for minority-owned businesses, even though they cannot show that they would have been awarded a contract but for the set-aside program); see also Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U.S. 728, 739-40 , 104 S.Ct. 1387, 1395-96 , 79 L.Ed.2d 646 (1984) (applying same standing rule in action challenging federal government’s use of gender-based classification under the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment). On remand, plaintiffs seem to have added a claim of such “stigmatic” injury to the list of harms that they claim the Plan has inflicted upon them. See Plaintiffs’ Post-Trial Brief at 4; Plaintiffs’ Responses to Defendanb-Intervenors’ First Set of Interrogatories, Responses Nos. 1 and 2. Under the reasoning of Bakke and its progeny, this “stigmatic” injury would appear sufficient to give them standing to challenge the Plan, if they can show that they were “personally denied equal treatment” by it.

But difficulties remain, which in fairness must be recognized. It is not immediately obvious how this liberal rule of standing developed in Bakke and later eases challenging explicit racial classifications can be transposed to race-based districting. To date, all of the cases in which the dignitary injury resulting from a racial classification has been found sufficient to confer Article III standing have involved the use of race to disadvantage members of a particular racial group relative to other persons in the distribution of some governmental benefit. Bakke and Northeastern Florida Contractors , for example, involved explicit racial set-asides that prevented applicants of a certain race from being considered for a particular governmental benefit. 12 In such eases, the classification clearly subjects the members of the disfavored group to “unequal treatment,” because it makes it more difficult for them to obtain the benefit in question than it is for other persons. As the Court explained, “the ‘injury in fact’ in an Equal Protection case of th[at] variety is the denial of equal treatment resulting from the imposition of the barrier” which denies members of one racial group the opportunity to compete for the benefit on an equal footing with members of other racial groups. Northeastern Florida Contractors , — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2303. But laws that assign voters to particular districts on the basis of their race, unlike racial set asides, do not appear to subject members of any racial group to “unequal treatment” vis-a-vis any other. So long as all citizens may vote, all individual votes receive the same weight, and no racial group’s voting strength is unduly diluted, all raeial groups are by *426 definition given a fair opportunity to participate in the electoral process, even if some are better positioned than others to elect representatives of their choice in particular districts. See Shaw, — U.S. at - & n. 4, 113 S.Ct. at 2846 & n. 4 (Souter, J., dissenting); see also Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U.S. at 153-55 , 91 S.Ct. at 1874-75 (fact that redistricting scheme causes members of a particular group to suffer repeated defeats at the polls and fails to provide them with proportional representation does not mean that it denies them an “equal opportunity” to participate in the electoral process); Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. at 131-32 , 106 S.Ct. at 2809-10 (same).

Despite this possible awkwardness, we think the Shaw Court must have intended to transpose to race-based districting the expansive concept of standing to challenge racial classifications born in Bakke and brought to maturity in Northeastern Florida Contractors . The linchpin of the Court’s analysis in Shaw was that race-based districting is no different than any other legislation that deliberately classifies citizens by race; it was on that basis that the Court held such legislation subject to strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. See Shaw, — U.S. at ---, 113 S.Ct. at 2824-25. Having equated race-based districting with legislation that explicitly classifies citizens on the basis of race for purposes of the underlying substantive law, it seems inconceivable that the Court would not also equate the two for purposes of standing, which serves merely to define the class of persons who have a sufficient personal stake in a particular substantive claim to litigate it in court. We therefore believe that the same expansive notion of standing developed in Bakke and other cases challenging explicit racial set-asides must also apply to cases challenging race-based districting; that is, that any person who can show that a redistricting plan has assigned him to vote in a particular district at least in part because of his race has standing to challenge it, even if he cannot show that it has caused any concrete injury to his political interests. 13 In this context, the “injury in fact” presumably is the state’s decision to deal with the voter as a member of a particular racial class, rather than as an individual, in assigning him to a voting district, which is an affront to his “personal dignity.” See J.E.B. v. Alabama ex rel. T.B., - U.S. -, -, 114 S.Ct. 1419, 1434 , 128 L.Ed.2d 89 (1994) (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment); Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547, 602 , 110 S.Ct. 2997, 3028-29 , 111 L.Ed.2d 445 (1990) (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (“At the heart of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection lies the simple command that the Government must treat citizens as ‘individuals, not as simply components of a racial ... class’ ”). That race-based redistricting necessarily visits this indignity equally upon all races would appear to be of no consequence in the standing analysis, for “racial classifications do not become legitimate [because] all persons suffer them in equal degree.” Powers, 499 U.S. at 410 , 111 S.Ct. at 1370 .

Such a broad standing principle eoneededly, and with all respect, has disquieting implications, which defendant-intervenors contend demonstrate its unacceptability. It would appear to mean that any person registered to vote in a jurisdiction with a districting plan that contains one or more districts which *427 have been deliberately, designed to have a certain racial composition has standing to challenge that plan, even if he is not assigned to vote in one of those districts himself. 14 And its ultimate implication, as defendantintervenors emphasize, is that any member or members of a racial minority for whose presumed benefit a majority-minority district has been created would have standing to challenge it as an improper “racial classification,” even if they cannot prove the sort of injury to their group voting strength required to make out a constitutional or statutory vote-dilution claim. See Croson, 488 U.S. at 494 , 109 S.Ct. at 722 (plurality) (all racial classifications immediately suspect under Equal Protection Clause, regardless of which race is benefitted or burdened).

Despite these difficulties, we understand Shaw necessarily to have implied a standing principle that accords standing to challenge a race-based redistricting plan to any voter who can show that it has assigned him to vote in a particular electoral district in part at least because of his race. '

C. Proof Required to Trigger Strict Scrutiny

The threshold showing required by Shaw to establish that a particular districting plan is subject to strict scrutiny is not immediately clear, as the conflicting contentions of the parties illustrate.

Plaintiffs and their supporting intervenors contend that after Shaw, strict scrutiny applies to any districting plan in which consideration of race is shown to have played a “substantial” or “motivating” role in the line-drawing process, even if it was not the only factor that influenced that process. They note that it has long been established, outside the districting context, that strict scrutiny applies to any legislation in which a racially-discriminatory purpose is shown to have played a “substantial” or “motivating” role, even if it was not the “sole,”- “dominant,” or even the “primary” purpose of the legislation. Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 265-66 , 97 S.Ct. 555, 568-64 , 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977); see Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222, 231 , 105 S.Ct. 1916, 1921-22 , 85 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985). They contend that Shaw simply transposed the Arlington Heights “substantial” or “motivating” role test to the districting context, and that in this context, it is necessarily satisfied by proof that the lines of a particular plan were deliberately drawn so as to create one or more districts in which a particular racial group has a majority, even if factors other than race also played a substantial role in the location and shape of those districts. As they point out, this is the interpretation of Shaw adopted by all three members of the court in Hays v. Louisiana, 839 F.Supp. 1188 (W.D.La.1993) (Hays I), vacated, - U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 2731 , 129 L.Ed.2d 853 (1994), 15 the first three-judge *428 court to consider a Shaw-Yike challenge to a race-based redistricting plan in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision here. See id. — U.S. at - & n. 46, 113 S.Ct. at 1202 & n. 46 (majority op.) (under Shaw, strict scrutiny is triggered by proof that race was an “important” or “significan^]” factor in the line-drawing process, even if it was not the only factor that influenced that process); id. — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 1216 (Walter, J., concurring) (strict scrutiny applies if race was “a motivating factor” in the line-drawing process); Jeffers v. Tucker, 847 F.Supp. 655, 671-72 (E.D.Ark.1994) (Eisele, J., concurring) (same).

The state and its allies, by contrast, argue that mere proof that the legislature deliberately drew district lines in order to create one or more districts in which a particular racial group has a majority is not sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny under Shaw. Instead, they read Shaw as holding that strict scrutiny applies only to plans that are shown to (i) create districts with highly irregular shapes; (ii) in which citizens of particular racial groups are concentrated in numbers disproportionate to their representation in the state’s population as a whole; and (iii) whose shape and location cannot rationally be explained by reference to any districting factor other than race. While they concede that proof of the first two factors may give rise to an inference that a plan is a “racial gerrymander” triggering strict scrutiny, they maintain that the state may rebut that inference by presenting evidence that the location and shape of the districts can rationally be explained by reference to some districting principle other than race, and that if the state does this, strict scrutiny does not apply and the plan must be judged instead under the lenient rational basis test. In their view, the Shaw Court was concerned not about all deliberate use of race in redistricting, but only about a narrow category of “exceptional cases” in which race-based redistricting produces majority-minority districts so peculiar-looking that they call attention to their racial purpose and thereby serve to exacerbate, rather than to alleviate, the existing racial divisions in society.

It is certainly possible to read the majority opinion in Shaw as holding no more than the state and its allies say it does. See DeWitt v. Wilson, 856 F.Supp. 1409 (E.D.Cal.1994) (adopting this reading of Shaw). As they point out, the plaintiffs’ reading of Shaw is hard to square with the nature of the Supreme Court’s remand in this case. It was clear, on the record before the Court, that the desire to create two districts in which African-Americans were a majority of voting age population was indeed a substantial motivating factor behind the enactment of this particular plan. Our opinion below had indicated that the state had conceded this fact in the proceedings before us, 808 F.Supp. at 470 , and several of the dissents in the Supreme Court called this concession to the majority’s attention. See — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2838 (White, J., dissenting); id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2843 (Stevens, J., dis *429 senting). If the deliberate creation of majority-minority districts was all that it took to trigger strict scrutiny, the most logical thing for the Court to have done would have been to note the state’s concession, announce that strict scrutiny was therefore applicable, and remand for application of that standard, since the factual record at that stage was not sufficiently well-developed to allow the Court to do so itself. But the Court did not do this; instead, it held only that plaintiffs’ allegations were sufficient to state a claim that the Plan was a racial gerrymander subject to strict scrutiny, id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2832, and it suggested several times that the state might yet avoid strict scrutiny on remand, by producing evidence that would somehow “rebut” or “contradict” that allegation of racial gerrymandering. Id. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 2832 (“If the allegation of racial gerrymandering remains uncontradieted, the District Court further must determine whether the North Carolina plan is narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest”); id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2830 (“[I]f appellants’ allegations of a racial gerrymander are not contradicted on remand, the District Court must determine whether the General Assembly’s reapportionment plan satisfies strict scrutiny”). In addition, the majority explicitly reserved the question whether the deliberate creation of majority-minority districts, without more, always triggers strict scrutiny, id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2828 (“[W]e express no view as to whether ‘the intentional creation of majority-minority districts, without more,’ always gives rise to an equal protection claim”). For these reasons, the state’s reading of Shaw cannot be rejected out of hand.

Despite its surface plausibility, however, we do not think the state’s interpretation of Shaw can be correct. If Shaw meant no more than the state says it does, it would have precious little practical effect on race-based districting, for it would require states to defend the deliberate creation of majority-minority districts under strict scrutiny only when they could not come up with any rational explanation for the location and shape of those districts other than race. This would seldom be the case, given the wide variety of other districting principles that may be used to justify even the most peculiar-looking districts. The language and structure of the Court’s opinion, if not its actual holding, strongly suggest that the Court intended to do much more than this. As we read the opinion, it was intended to place race-based redistricting legislation into the same category as all other forms of race-based state action after Croson, for purposes of analysis under the Equal Protection Clause: subject to strict scrutiny upon a showing that the state’s use of race to distinguish among citizens was deliberate, whether or not it can be said to have had a “benign” or “remedial” purpose. There are admittedly some problems with this reading, though, which the state defendants and their allies properly point out. We therefore analyze the relevant portions of the Court’s opinion in some detail.

The whole thrust of the Court’s description of the remanded claim is to locate it within post-Croson “color-blind” Equal Protection jurisprudence, in which strict scrutiny is triggered simply by the fact that legislation “classifies” citizens by race — whatever its asserted purpose, however its presumed benefits and burdens are cast, and whether the racial classification is overt or implicit. The Court begins with a textbook exposition of the basic premises and precepts of that jurisprudence: The “central purpose” of the Equal Protection Clause is “to prevent the States from purposefully discriminating between individuals on the basis of [their] race.” — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2824. Laws that deliberately distinguish between citizens on the basis of their race are “odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality,” because they “threaten to stigmatize individuals by reason of their membership in a racial group and to incite racial hostility.” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2824 (internal quotations omitted). 16 They must therefore be subject to *430 the strictest judicial scrutiny, even when claimed to have a “benign” or “remedial” purpose, for “ ‘[ajbsent searching judicial inquiry ..., there is simply no way of determining wh[ich] [racial] classifications are “benign” or “remedial” and wh[ieh] are in fact motivated by illegitimate notions of racial inferiority or simple racial politics.’ ” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2824 (quoting Croson, 488 U.S. at 493 , 109 S.Ct. at 721-22 (plurality)). This strict scrutiny applies not only to legislation that is overtly race-based — that is, that draws “explicit racial distinctions” on its face, as did the minority set-aside policy in Croson — but also to legislation that employs a classification which, though facially race-neutral, is shown to be “ ‘an obvious pretext for racial discrimination.’” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2825. And one way to prove that a facially race-neutral law is in fact a pretext for racial discrimination is to show that it draws distinctions that are “‘unexplainable on grounds other than race.’ ” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2825.

The Court then turns to a discussion of how these principles apply in the context of electoral districting. Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2825-28. It begins by stating that “district lines obviously drawn for the purpose of separating voters by race require careful scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause, regardless of the motivations underlying their adoption.” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2826. It observes that it is normally difficult to prove that a single-member districting plan “purposefully distinguishes between voters on the basis of race,” because such plans “typically do[] not classify persons at all,” but “tracts of land, or addresses,” and there are many legitimate non-racial reasons why a legislature might choose to construct districts in a way that concentrated members of a particular racial group in one or more of them. Id. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 2826. But it says there are a handful of “exceptional cases” in which proving that a redistricting plan “purposefully distinguishes between voters on the basis of race,” hence is subject to strict scrutiny, “will not be difficult at all”: those in which the plan contains district lines “so highly irregular” that they “rationally cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to ‘segregate] ... voters’ on the basis of race.” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2826. Two examples of plans that fall into this category are given: the actual plan in Gomillion, in which “a tortured municipal boundary line was drawn to exclude black voters,” and a hypothetical plan that “concentrate[s] a dispersed minority population in a single district by disregarding traditional districting principles such as compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions.” Id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2826-27. In such cases, the Court explains, the irregular shape of the districts serves as powerful circumstantial evidence that the legislature was in fact motivated by a racial purpose when it drew them. See id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2827 (the legislature’s failure to observe “traditional districting principles” is “objective” evidence that the districts were “gerrymandered on racial lines”); id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2827 (“ ‘dramatically irregular shapes may have sufficient probative force to call for an explanation’”) (quoting Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725, 755 , 103 S.Ct. 2653, 2672 , 77 L.Ed.2d 133 (1983) (Stevens, J., concurring)). 17

*431 We think it readily apparent from the Court’s analysis that what it finds potentially offensive about the Plan under challenge here — from a constitutional standpoint — is not that it is aesthetically “ugly,” but that its drafters may deliberately, and unjustifiably, have taken race into account in assigning voters to particular districts. See — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2832 (“race-based districting by our state legislatures,” like “[r]acial classifications of any sort,” must be subject to “close judicial scrutiny,” because it “reinforce[s] the belief, held by too many for too much of our history, that individuals should be judged by the color of their skin,” and threatens to “balkanize us into competing racial factions”). The peculiar, “bizarre,” or “ugly” shapes of its districts has some significance in the constitutional analysis at this stage, but only as circumstantial evidence that the disproportionate concentration of members of a particular race in certain districts was something the line-drawers deliberately set about to accomplish, as opposed to being simply an accidental consequence of a line-drawing process driven by other districting concerns. See id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2827.

The necessary implication of this analysis is that strict scrutiny of an electoral redistricting plan is now triggered by proof— by any means, including state concession, bizarre shape, or some combination of the various factors typically used to prove the “intent” element of an Equal Protection claim under Arlington Heights — that racial considerations played a “substantial” or “motivating” role in the line-drawing process, even if they were not the only factor that influenced that process. See Hays I, 839 F.Supp. at 1202 & n. 46 (majority op.); id. at 1216 (Walter, J., concurring); Jeffers, 847 F.Supp., at 671-72 (Eisele, J., concurring). This “race-a-motivating-factor” triggering test is necessarily met by proof that the plan’s lines were deliberately drawn so as to create one or more districts in which a particular racial group is a majority, even if factors other than race are shown to have played a significant role in the precise location and shape of those districts. If the line-drawing process is shown to have been infected by such a deliberate racial purpose, strict scrutiny cannot be avoided simply by demonstrating that the shape and location of the districts can rationally be explained by reference to some districting principle other than race, for the intentional classification of voters by race, though perhaps disguised, is still likely to reflect the “impermissible racial stereotypes,” Shaw, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2827, “ ‘illegitimate notions of racial inferiority’ ” and “ ‘simple racial polities,’ ” id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2824, that strict scrutiny is designed to “ ‘smoke out.’ ” Croson, 488 *432 U.S. at 493 , 109 S.Ct. at 721 (plurality). 18 This is the obvious implication of the Shaw majority’s effort to import post-Crosow. Equal Protection principles into the electoral districting context, see Aleinikoff & Isaaeharoff, supra, at 664-43, and it is the reading of Shaw most consistent with the views on Equal Protection expressed by the members of the Shaw majority in their various opinions in Wygant, Croson, and Metro Broadcasting. 19 See also Johnson v. De Grandy, - U.S. -, --, 114 S.Ct. 2647, 2664-67 , 129 L.Ed.2d 775 (1994) (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (reading Shaw as applying “to the drawing of electoral and political boundaries” the Croson principle that “the sorting of persons with an intent to divide by reason of race raises the most serious constitutional questions,” triggering strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause regardless of the race of those burdened or benefited by it, and therefore admonishing “state and federal officials with responsibilities related to redistricting, as well as reviewing courts, to recognize that explicit race-based districting ... must comply with the overriding demands of the Equal Protection Clause”). But, the state defendants and their allies fairly ask, if the Court intended the deliberate creation of majority-minority districts, standing alone, to trigger strict scrutiny, why did it not rest its remand simply on that ground, as it easily could have done here, given the state’s concession? Why did it deliberately reserve the question whether the deliberate creation of majority-minority districts, without more, will always give rise to an Equal Protection claim, and write an opinion that can be read to confine strict scrutiny to cases in which the lines cannot rationally be explained on any ground other than race?

The question is by no means easily answered, but we think there must be an answer that does not undercut our previously-stated understanding of Shaw. Several can be ventured. First, a broad holding that strict scrutiny applies to any plan that deliberately creates majority-minority districts, even when those districts are not highly irregular, would have required the Court to overrule its earlier decision in UJO . By confining its discussion to bizarre-looking districts, the Court was able to distinguish UJO as involving a majority-minority district of relatively normal shape. See — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2829. Second, the Court may have thought it unfair to hold the State of North Carolina, which had not yet even filed an answer in this action, to a concession it made in response to a Rule 12(b)(6) motion at a time when it had fair reason to believe that UJO , under which the concession would have made no difference, was still the controlling authority. Finally, the Court may have viewed the concession made by the state here as an aberration that was unlikely to occur in the vast majority of cases, and ignored it in order to announce a rule that would permit plaintiffs making comparable claims to prove the “intentional” use of race necessary to trigger strict scrutiny inferentially, when the state did not concede it. In any event, we have no need to identify the exact reason for this action by the Court; it suffices here simply to demonstrate that the *433 state has not identified the only possible reason.

Before leaving this point, we also need, in fairness, to consider one other objection that the state and its allies raise to the reading of Shaw suggested- by plaintiffs and their supporting intervenors: that it will require virtually all redistricting plans to be defended under strict scrutiny, since it is almost always possible to show that a legislature was aware to some degree of the racial impact of the lines it was drawing, particularly now that all redistricting is done with computers into which racial data is loaded. See Shaw, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2826 (“redistricting differs from other kinds of state decisionmaking in that the legislature always is aware of race when it draws district lines, just as it is aware of age, economic status, religious and political persuasion, and a variety of other demographic factors”) (emphasis in original).

We do not believe any such drastic consequence will result from our reading of Shaw. The Supreme Court’s Equal Protection cases have long recognized that there is a critical distinction between “race-conscious” action and “race-based” action, and that the “intentional” use of race required to trigger strict scrutiny of legislative action cannot be established simply by showing that the legislature adopted a particular course of action with knowledge that it was likely to have a particular racial impact. See Personnel Adm. of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 279 , 99 S.Ct. 2282, 2296 , 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979) (the sort of “discriminatory purpose” required to trigger strict scrutiny of a facially-neutral statute “implies more than intent as volition or intent as awareness of consequences”; it requires a showing “that the decisionmaker ... selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part ‘because of,’ not merely ‘in spite of,’ its adverse effects upon an identifiable group”). The Shaw majority specifically stated that the “intentional” or “deliberate” use of race required to trigger strict scrutiny in the redistricting context, as elsewhere, means not just taking action with knowledge or awareness that it is likely to have a particular racial impact, but taking it with the specific intent to bring about such an impact. See — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2826 (noting that “the legislature always is aware of race when it draws district lines,” but that “[t]hat sort of race consciousness does not lead inevitably to impermissible race discrimination”) (emphasis in original). Properly applied, this distinction between “race-conscious” and “race-based” districting should prevent legislatures from having to defend all districting plans under the strict scrutiny standard. 20

Nor will our reading of Shaw condemn to constitutional invalidity all majority-minority districts drawn to give effect to minority voting strength in order to comply with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. As the cases involving affirmative action in higher education and public employment demonstrate, although strict scrutiny places significant limitations on the ability of state actors *434 to take race-based remedial action, it need not be “strict in theory, fatal in fact.” Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 518-19 , 100 S.Ct. 2758, 2795-96 , 65 L.Ed.2d 902 (1980). Application of strict scrutiny to all redistricting proven to be race-based will certainly make state legislatures look before they leap when it comes to voluntary compliance with the Voting Rights Act. But it should not prevent them from attempting to comply with it altogether, so long as the “narrowly tailored to further a compelling state interest” standard is applied in a way that is sensitive not only to the state legislatures’ statutory obligation to create majority-minority districts to give effect to minority voting strength in areas where minorities have been subjected to persistent discrimination in the political process, but also to the special compromises that they must make in order to pass plans that draw such districts.

With that in mind, we turn now to the problems of how, under Shaw, strict scrutiny is to be applied in the redistrieting context.

D. Application of The Strict Scrutiny Standard in the Redistrieting Context

Shaw holds that any deliberately race-based state redistrieting plan is subject to “strict scrutiny” under the Equal Protection Clause, and that it can survive that scrutiny only if its use of race is both justified by a “compelling governmental interest” and “narrowly tailored” to further that interest. — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2832. But while Shaw offers some brief suggestions about what this standard might require in the redistricting context, see id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2830-32, it does not actually apply it to this particular redistrieting plan. Nor has any other decision of the Supreme Court ever applied strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause to specific electoral redistrieting legislation. In seeking to understand how that is to be done here, we must look for guidance primarily to the Court’s decisions applying the strict scrutiny standard to race-based remedial measures voluntarily undertaken by state actors in other contexts: higher education, employment, and government contracting. See Regents of the Univ. of Calif, v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 , 98 S.Ct. 2733 , 57 L.Ed.2d 750 (1978); Wygant v. Jackson Bd. of Educ., 476 U.S. 267 , 106 S.Ct. 1842 , 90 L.Ed.2d 260 (1986), and City of Richmond v. J.A Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 , 109 S.Ct. 706 , 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989). 21

Here again, we confront the problem of transposing to the redistrieting context a legal standard developed in very different factual contexts. There are difficulties— again emphasized by the parties’ conflicting contentions — arising from the fact that race-based electoral redistrieting differs, in several critical respects, from the race-based remedial measures which the Court has previously analyzed under the strict scrutiny standard. First, and most critically, unlike the use of racial preferences in educational admissions, employment, and government contracting, the drawing of district lines so as to give effect to minority voting strength is specifically mandated by a federal statute enacted by Congress under its broad constitutional authority to remedy the effects of past discrimination. 22 Second, unlike dis *435 crimination in education, employment, and government contracting, the specific type of discrimination that race-based redistrieting is designed to redress — denial of fair and effective representation — threatens the very legitimacy of our nation’s political system. Third, unlike most other types of affirmative action, race-based redistrieting is a remedy whose benefits inure, in large part, to individuals who have themselves been victims of the discriminatory practices that it is designed to dismantle. See Grofman, Would Vince Lombardi Have Been Right If He Said: “When It Comes to Redistrieting, Race Isn’t Everything, It’s the Only Thing?”, 14 Cardozo L.Rev. 1287, 1246 & n. 40 (1993). Finally, as noted in our standing discussion, unlike the use of racial preferences in making admissions to medical school, deciding which employees to lay off, and awarding government contracts, the drawing of district lines so as to give effect to minority voting strength does not necessarily disadvantage members of other racial groups. So long as all citizens may vote, all individual votes receive the same weight, and no racial group’s voting strength is unduly diluted by the resulting districting scheme, there is no unequal treatment as between affected groups. See Shaw, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2846 (Souter, J., dissenting); Bakke, 438 U.S. at 305 , 98 S.Ct. at 2756 (Powell, J.) (noting that deliberate creation of majority-minority districts in order to give effect to existing minority voting strength “improve[s] the previously disadvantaged group’s ability to participate without excluding individuals belonging to any other group from enjoyment of the relevant opportunity — meaningful participation in the electoral process”). As discussed more fully below, these differences give rise to several specific difficulties in transposing developed strict scrutiny principles to the context of remedial redistrieting.

1. Burden of proof

The parties disagree at the outset about the allocation of the burden of proof at the strict scrutiny stage of the Equal Protection analysis. Although plaintiffs and their supporting intervenors concede that they have the burden of proving the Plan is a “racial gerrymander” subject to strict scrutiny, they *436 argue that if they succeed in doing this, the burden then shifts to the state to prove that the Plan’s use of race is narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest. According to them, this is how the three-judge court in Hays I viewed the state’s burden of justification at the strict scrutiny stage of a racial gerrymandering case like this one. The state and its allies, by contrast, maintain that the state’s burden is merely to identify a compelling justification for its use of race, and that plaintiffs retain the ultimate burden of persuading the court that its proffered justification is not compelling or that the Plan is not narrowly tailored to further it.

think the state has the better of this argument. The Supreme Court rerehas emphasized that when members of a racial minority bring an Equal Protec-Protecchallenge to a state law or policy, they bear the ultimate burden of persuasion throughout the proceeding. See, e.g., Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 , 93-94 & n. 18, 106 S.Ct. 1712 , 1721-22 & n. 18, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). The rule is no different for Equal Protection challenges to state laws or policies brought by members of the majority race. Cf Cf. 488 U.S. at 494 , 109 S.Ct. at 722 (plurality) (“the guarantee of equal protecproteccannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and sotnething else when apapto a person of another color”). In such a reverse-discrimination case, as in any other Equal Protection case, “[t]he ultimate burden remains with the [plaintiff] to demonstrate the unconstitutionality of [the] affirmative-affirmative-program.” Wygant, 476 U.S. at 277 -277- 106 S.Ct. at 1848-49 (plurality); id. at 292 , 106 S.Ct. at 1856-57 (O’Connor, J., conconin part and concurring in the judgjudg(“in ‘reverse discrimination’ suits, as in any other suit, it is the plaintiffs who must bear the burden of demonstrating that their rights have been violated”). Proof that the challenged law or policy is race-based gives rise to a presumption that it is unconstituunconstituand shifts to the state the burden of “demonstrating” that its use of race was justified by a compelling governmental interinter Croson, 488 U.S. at 505 ,109 505, 109 at 728 (majority). But the burden thus shifted is one of production only, not persuasion; plaintiffs still “bear the ultimate burden of persuading the court that the [state’s] evidence did not support an inference of prior discrimination and thus a remedial purpose, or that the [remedial action] instituted on the basis of this evidence was not sufficiently ‘narrowly tailored,’ ” and they can “establish a violation of their constitutional rights,” and thus prevail on their Equal Protection claim, “[o]nly by meeting this burden.” Wygant, 476 U.S. at 293 , 106 S.Ct. at 1857 (O’Connor, J., concurring).

Nothing in Shaw purports to alter these well-settled principles of Equal Protec-Protecjurisprudence. Nor do we read the paspasin Hays I upon which plaintiffs and their supporting intervenors rely as holding that the state bears the burden of persuasion with respect to either prong of the strict scrutiny inquiry. While the Hays I court did remark that there was a rough “parallelism” between “the State’s burden here of estabestabthe affirmative justification of a comcomstate interest” and a “criminal defendefen burden — at common estab — of establishing an affirmative defense,” 839 F.Supp. at 1206 (emphasis in original), it was very careful to point out that it was not using this analogy to make any point about the location of the burden of persuasion with respect to the presence or absence of such justification. Id. at 1206 n. 59; We therefore conclude that in a Shaw -like challenge to a race-based redistricting plan, as in any other sort of Equal Protection case, the state’s burden at the strict scrutiny eviis producing evidence that the plan’s use of race is narrowly tailored to further intercompelling state interest, and that plaintiffs retain the ultimate burden of persuading the court either that the proffered justification is not compelling or that the Plan is not narrowly tailored to further it. See Wygant, 476 U.S. at 292-93 , 106 S.Ct. at concur(O’Connor, J., concurring).

2. State Interest

We next consider the circumstances in which a state might have a “compelling interest” in redistrictin race-based redistricting to give effect to minority voting strength. *437 At the outset, we note that, contrary to plaintiffs’ suggestion, the critical question at this stage of the analysis is not whether the state had a compelling interest in enacting the particular race-based redistricting plan under challenge, with all of its twists and turns, but whether it had a compelling interest in enacting any race-based redistricting plan. Whether the particular plan under challenge takes race into account to a greater degree than necessary to further a compelling state interest is a question for the “narrowly tailored” prong of the strict scrutiny analysis, which examines the “fit” between the compelling state interest and the precise means chosen by the state to accomplish it. See Wygant, 476 U.S. at 280 & n. 6, 106 S.Ct. at 1850 & n. 6 (opinion of Powell, J.); Fullilove, 448 U.S. at 507 , 100 S.Ct. at 2789-90 (Powell, J., concurring). We therefore focus our attention here on the types of state interests that might be considered sufficiently “compelling” to justify race-based redistricting. The state and its allies have suggested two: compliance with the Voting Rights Act and eradicating the effects of past and present racial discrimination in North Carolina’s political processes. We take these in turn.

a. Compliance with the Voting Rights Act

We agree that a state may have a “compelling” interest in engaging in race-based redistricting in order to comply with the substantive requirements of the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court has long recognized that a state’s interest in eradicating the effects of its own past or present racial discrimination is sufficiently “compelling” to support its undertaking of race-based remedial action. See Shaw, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2831; Croson, 488 U.S. at 491-93, 509-10 , 109 S.Ct. at 720-22, 730 (plurality); id. at 518 , 109 S.Ct. at 734-35 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment); Wygant, 476 U.S. at 280-82 , 106 S.Ct. at 1850-51 (plurality); id. at 286 , 106 S.Ct. at 1853 (O’Connor, J., concurring); Bakke, 438 U.S. at 307 , 98 S.Ct. at 2757 (opinion of Powell, J.). The Court also has recognized that this interest extends to remedying past or present violations of federal statutes that are designed to eradicate such discrimination in particular aspects of life. See Croson, 488 U.S. at 500 , 109 S.Ct. at 725 (majority) (“constitutional or statutory violation[s]”); Wygant, 476 U.S. at 274-75 , 106 S.Ct. at 1847-48 (plurality) (Title VII); id. at 289 , 106 S.Ct. at 1854-55 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“violation[s] of federal statutory or constitutional requirements”); Bakke, 438 U.S. at 307-09 , 98 S.Ct. at 2757-58 (opinion of Powell, J.) (“constitutional or statutory violations”). Finally, the Court has made clear that a state need not await a judicial finding that it is guilty of past or present discrimination before embarking on a voluntary program of remedial action designed to eradicate that discrimination, so long as it has a “strong basis in evidence” for concluding that such remedial action is “necessary.” Croson, 488 U.S. at 500 , 109 S.Ct. at 725 (majority); Wygant, 476 U.S. at 277 , 106 S.Ct. at 1848-49 (plurality); id. at 286 , 106 S.Ct. at 1853 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“a firm basis for believing that remedial action is required”). 23 Indeed, the political branches of state government have an affirmative constitutional duty to take voluntary remedial action in the face of such evidence. See Wygant, 476 U.S. at 277 , 106 S.Ct. at 1848-49 (plurality); id. at 291 , 106 S.Ct. at 1856 (O’Connor, J., concurring); Croson, 488 U.S. at 519 , 109 S.Ct. at 735 (Kennedy, J., concurring).

Under these principles, we think it clear that a state has a “compelling” interest in engaging in race-based redistricting to give effect to minority voting strength whenever it has a “strong basis in evidence” for concluding that such action is “necessary” to prevent its electoral districting scheme from violating the Voting Rights Act. If a state’s interest in remedying a violation of the anti- *438 discrimination provisions of Title VII is sufficiently “compelling” to support its undertaking of race-based affirmative action, see Wygant, 476 U.S. at 274-75 , 106 S.Ct. at 1847-48 (plurality); id. at 289-93 , 106 S.Ct. at 1854-57 (O’Connor, J., concurring), its interest in remedying a violation of the anti-discrimination provisions of the Voting Rights Act is even more compelling, for Title VII is based only on the commerce power, whereas the Voting Rights Act is a direct exercise of Congress’ broad constitutional power to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Indeed, the Supreme Court has recognized consistently that the Voting Rights Act is the single most important piece of federal anti-discrimination legislation ever passed by Congress — enacted, and then twice extended, with the avowed purpose of putting a stop to nearly a century of “ ‘unremitting and ingenious defiance’ of the commands of the Fifteenth Amendment” by the states and “ ‘banish[ing] the blight of racial discrimination in voting’ once and for all.” McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U.S. 236, 244 , 104 S.Ct. 1037, 1043 , 79 L.Ed.2d 271 (1984) (quoting South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 308-09 , 86 S.Ct. 803, 808-09 , 15 L.Ed.2d 769 (1966)).

Nothing in Shaw suggests that a state’s interest in complying with the Voting Rights Act is not sufficiently “compelling” to justify its engaging in race-based redistricting. Indeed, the Shaw majority specifically confirms that the states “have a very strong interest in complying with [the Voting Rights Act],” at least to the extent it is “constitutionally valid as interpreted and as applied.” — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2830. We do not believe any of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act to be constitutionally infirm, at least when they are applied in accordance with the Supreme Court’s established interpretation of them. The Court has

specifically upheld the § 5 preelearance requirement as a legitimate exercise of Congress’ power to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 334-35 , 86 S.Ct. 803, 821-22 , 15 L.Ed.2d 769 (1966); see City of Rome v. United States, 446 U.S. 156, 180-82 , 100 S.Ct. 1548, 1563-64 , 64 L.Ed.2d 119 (1980) (finding 1975 extension of § 5 constitutional on same ground), and it has rejected a claim that the “effect” prong of § 5 exceeds Congress’ power under the Fifteenth Amendment because it reaches conduct which may not itself have violated the Fifteenth Amendment. Id. at 185-87, 100 S.Ct. at 1565-67. The constitutionality of the “purpose” prongs of § 5 and § 2 cannot be doubted, since they merely reiterate the substantive standards imposed upon the states by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments themselves. See Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U.S. 380, 392-93 , 111 S.Ct. 2354, 2362 , 115 L.Ed.2d 348 (1991). And we think it clear that the “results” prong of amended § 2, as interpreted in Thornburg v. Gingles, is constitutional under the test set forth in South Carolina v. Katzenbach and City of Rome. See 446 U.S. at 177 , 100 S.Ct. at 1561-62 (“under section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress may prohibit practices that in and of themselves do not violate § 1 of the Amendment, so long as the prohibitions attacking racial discrimination in voting are ‘appropriate,’ as that term is defined in McCulloch v. Maryland [ 17 U.S. 316 , 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819) ] and Ex parte Virginia [ 100 U.S. 339 , 25 L.Ed. 676 (1879) ] ”); see also Croson, 488 U.S. at 490 , 109 S.Ct. at 720 (opinion of O’Connor, J., joined by Rehnquist, C.J., and White, J) (“Congress ... has a specific constitutional mandate to enforce the dictates of the Fourteenth Amendment,” which “may at times also include the power to define situations which Congress determines threaten principles of equality and to adopt prophylactic rules to deal with those situations”) (emphasis in original). 24 We therefore hold that a *439 state necessarily has a “compelling” interest in engaging in race-based redistricting whenever it has a firm basis for concluding that such action is necessary to bring its electoral districting scheme into compliance with the Voting Rights Act. Accord Hays I, 839 F.Supp. at 1217 (Walter, J., concurring).

As in other affirmative action contexts, a state need not await a judicial finding that its existing districting scheme (or a proposed revision thereof) actually violates the Voting Rights Act before it enacts a race-based redistricting plan designed to give effect to minority voting strength, so long as it has a “strong basis in evidence” for concluding that such action is “necessary” to avoid a violation of the Act. See Croson, 488 U.S. at 500, 109 S.Ct. at 725 (majority); Wygant, 476 U.S. at 277 , 106 S.Ct. at 1848-49 (plurality); id. at 286 , 106 S.Ct. at 1853 (O’Connor, J., concurring). Nor must the state legislature make an explicit finding that the state’s existing districting plan (or a proposed revision thereof) violates the Act before it draws one that deliberately gives greater effect to minority voting strength. See id. at 277-78, 10 S.Ct. at 1848-49 (plurality); id. at 289-90, 106 S.Ct. at 1854-55 (O’Connor, J., concurring). Such a specific contemporaneous finding of discrimination is of course useful to a court, because it provides “a means by which it can be made absolutely certain that the governmental actor truly is attempting to remedy its own unlawful conduct when it adopts an affirmative action plan, rather than attempting to alleviate the wrongs suffered through general societal discrimination.” Id. at 289, 106 S.Ct. at 1854. But it is not essential; all that is required is evidence that the legislature “act[ed] on the basis of information which g[ave] [it] a sufficient basis for concluding that [such] remedial action [was] necessary.” Id. at 291, 106 S.Ct. at 1856. 25 As Justice O’Connor has explained, a rule that a state actor must make an explicit finding that it is guilty of illegal discrimination before it can take voluntary steps to remedy that discrimination “would severely undermine [the state’s] incentive to meet voluntarily [its] civil rights obligations,” which would “clearly be at odds with [the] Court’s and Congress’ consistent emphasis on the value of ... voluntary compliance” with the federal discrimination laws. Id. at 290, 106 S.Ct. at 1855 (internal citations omitted).

A state has a “strong basis in evidence” for concluding that it must engage in race-based redistricting in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act when it has information sufficient to support a prima facie showing that its failure to do so would violate the Act. See Croson, 488 U.S. at 500 , 109 S.Ct. at 725 (majority) (evidence “approaching a prima facie case of a constitutional or statutory violation”); Wygant, 476 U.S. at 292 , 106 S.Ct. at 1856-57 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“demonstrable evidence____ sufficient to support a prima facie Title VII ... claim by [the] minority”); see also Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. 616, 650-52 , 107 S.Ct. 1442, 1461-63 , 94 L.Ed.2d 615 (1987) (O’Connor, J., concurring in the judgment) (evidence sufficient for a “Title VII prima facie case” by the relevant minority). 26 *440 There are at least two situations in which this might be the case, both of which are suggested by the state' and its allies here.

The first is when the state has before it information sufficient to support a prima facie § 2 challenge to the existing districting plan by members of the relevant minority group. To make out a prima facie § 2 challenge to a single-member districting scheme, members of a protected racial minority must show three things: (i) that their population is “sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority” in more single-member districts than the number in which they have a majority under the challenged scheme; (ii) that they are “politically cohesive,” and (iii) that “the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate” in districts that are not majority-minority. See Growe v. Emison, - U.S. -, -, 113 S.Ct. 1075, 1084 , 122 L.Ed.2d 388 (1993) (internal quotations omitted); Voinovich v. Quitter, — U.S. -, -, 113 S.Ct. 1149, 1157 , 122 L.Ed.2d 500 (1993). 27 When a state legislature has before it information sufficient to permit it to conclude that the relevant minority group could make out such a prima facie § 2 challenge to the existing plan, then it has a “strong basis in evidence” for concluding that it needs to engage in race-based redistricting to comply with § 2, and it has necessarily established a compelling interest in doing so. 28 See Hays *441 I, 839 F.Supp. at 1217 (Walter, J., concurring); see also Croson, 488 U.S. at 500 , 109 S.Ct. at 725 (majority) (evidence “approaching a prima facie case of a constitutional or statutory violation”); Wygant, 476 U.S. at 292 , 106 S.Ct. at 1856-57 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (evidence “sufficient to support a prima facie Title VII ... claim by [the] minority”); Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. 616, 650-52 , 107 S.Ct. 1442, 1461-63 , 94 L.Ed.2d 615 (1987) (O’Connor, J., concurring in the judgment) (evidence sufficient for a “Title VII prima facie ease” by the relevant minority). 29

The second, which is a possibility only in jurisdictions subject to the preclearance requirements of § 5, is that a plan previously proposed by the state for the same round of redistricting has been denied preclearance on the ground that it fails to give sufficient effect to minority voting strength to satisfy § 5. Section 5 forbids a covered jurisdiction to put a redistricting plan into effect unless it proves, to the satisfaction of either the United States District Court for the District of Columbia or its surrogate, the United States Department of Justice, that the proposed plan had neither the “purpose ... [nor] the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.” 42 U.S.C. § 1973c; see Georgia v. United States, 411 U.S. 526, 531-35 , 93 S.Ct. 1702, 1706-08 , 36 L.Ed.2d 472 (1973); McDaniel v. Sanchez, 452 U.S. 130, 137 , 101 S.Ct. 2224, 2229-30 , 68

L.Ed.2d 724 (1981). The Supreme Court has consistently held that the § 5 standard has two prongs, a “purpose” prong and an “effect” prong, and that a plan cannot be precleared unless it satisfies both of them. McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U.S. 236, 247 , 104 S.Ct. 1037, 1044-45 , 79 L.Ed.2d 271 (1984); City of Lockhart v. United States, 460 U.S. 125 , 130 & n. 4, 103 S.Ct. 998 , 1002 & n. 4, 74 L.Ed.2d 863 (1983); City of Port Arthur v. United States, 459 U.S. 159, 168 , 103 S.Ct. 530, 535-36 , 74 L.Ed.2d 334 (1982); City of Rome v. United States, 446 U.S. 156, 172 , 100 S.Ct. 1548, 1559 , 64 L.Ed.2d 119 (1980); Beer v. United States, 425 U.S. 130 , 136 n. 7, 141, 96 S.Ct. 1357 , 1361 n. 7, 1363-64, 47 L.Ed.2d 629 (1976); City of Richmond v. United States, 422 U.S. 358, 372-73 , 95 S.Ct. 2296, 2304-05 , 45 L.Ed.2d 245 (1975). As currently interpreted by the Supreme Court, the “effect” prong of § 5 is relatively toothless, being satisfied — at least in the context of legislative reapportionment — simply by proof that the proposed plan will not “lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise.” Beer, 425 U.S. at 141 , 96 S.Ct. at 1364 . 30 The “purpose” prong, by contrast, requires a showing that the proposed plan was not designed to dilute minority voting strength in the sense forbidden by the Constitution. City of Port Arthur, 459 U.S. at 168 , 103 S.Ct. at 535-36; City of Richmond, 422 U.S. at 372, 378-79 , 95 S.Ct. at 2304-05, 2307-08 . 31 The Supreme *442 Court has previously upheld the denial of preclearance to redistricting plans which, though non-retrogressive, have not been shown to be free from such a racially discriminatory purpose. See, e.g., Busbee v. Smith, 549 F.Supp. 494, 516 (D.D.C.1982) (three-judge court), aff'd, 459 U.S. 1166 , 103 S.Ct. 809 , 74 L.Ed.2d 1010 (1983); see also City of Richmond, 422 U.S. at 372, 378-79 , 95 S.Ct. at 2304-05, 2307-08 . 32

When an earlier version of a state’s redistricting plan is denied preelearance by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on the ground that it fails to satisfy either the “purpose” or “effect” prong of the § 5 test, the state obviously has a “strong basis in evidence” for concluding that the Voting Rights Act requires it to engage in race-based redistricting in order to remedy that problem. See Bakke, 438 U.S. at 307 , 98 S.Ct. at 2757 (opinion of Powell, J.) (judicial finding of statutory violation sufficient to give state a compelling interest in taking race-based remedial action). The same is normally true when preelearance is denied by the Justice Department, which Congress has authorized to serve as a surrogate for the District Court in reviewing § 5 submissions. See id. at 305, 98 S.Ct. at 2756 (opinion of Powell, J.) (§ 5 objection by Justice Department is properly viewed as “an administrative finding of discrimination,” which is sufficient to give the state a compelling interest in taking race-based remedial action). Contrary to plaintiffs’ suggestion, the Equal Protection Clause does not require a state to challenge a Justice Department denial of preclearance in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and lose, before it may safely conclude that it has a compelling interest in adopting a new plan to address the concerns upon which the Department’s denial of preclearance was based. Such a rule would indicate disrespect for the judgment of the Attorney General, who has been authorized by Congress to serve as a surrogate for the District Court in reviewing § 5 submissions. It would also be inconsistent with the general federal policy of encouraging the states to comply voluntarily with their obligations under the federal civil rights laws. See Wygant, 476 U.S. at 290-91 , 106 S.Ct. at 1855-56 (O’Connor, J., concurring). Finally, it would encourage needless litigation, which would undermine the central purpose of the § 5 preclearance requirement: to prevent jurisdictions whose electoral systems have been infected with official racial discrimination in the recent past 33 from avoiding their consti *443 tutional duty to remedy the effects of that discrimination by engaging in protracted litigation over the nature of that obligation. See McCain, 465 U.S. at 244-46 , 104 S.Ct. at 1043-44 ; see also South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. at 335 , 86 S.Ct. at 822 . Instead, we believe that a state has a “strong basis in evidence” for concluding that it must engage in race-based redistrieting to comply with § 5 whenever the Justice Department has refused to preclear a plan it has proposed for the same round of redistrieting on the ground that it fails to satisfy the § 5 standard, and the state reasonably concludes, after conducting its own independent reassessment of the rejected plan in light of the concerns identified by the Justice Department, that the Justice Department’s conclusion is legally and factually supportable. 34

b. Eradicating Effects of Past or Present Discrimination In North Carolina’s Political Processes

The state and its allies also argue that a state may have a “compelling” interest in engaging in race-based redistrieting to eradicate the effects of past or present racial discrimination in its political processes, even when it has no basis for believing that the Voting Rights Act requires it to do so. We agree.

The Supreme Court has recognized repeatedly that a state has a compelling interest in taking race-based affirmative action where it has a firm basis for concluding that such action is necessary to eradicate the effects of past or present racial discrimination within its own jurisdiction, even when it has no federal statutory mandate to do so. See, e.g., Croson, 488 U.S. at 491-93 , 109 5.Ct. at 720-21 (opinion of O’Connor, J., joined by Rehnquist, C.J., and White, J.); id. at 509 , 109 S.Ct. at 730 (plurality); id. at 518 , 109 S.Ct. at 734-35 (Kennedy, J., concurring); Wygant, 476 U.S. at 280-82 , 106 S.Ct. at 1850-51 (plurality); id. at 286 , 106 S.Ct. at 1853 (O’Connor, J., concurring). Of course, generalized evidence that past “societal discrimination” has continuing effects within the state is not sufficient to trigger this compelling interest. See Croson, 488 U.S. at 504-06 , 109 S.Ct. at 727-28 (majority); Wygant, 476 U.S. at 276 , 106 S.Ct. at 1848 (plurality) (“Societal discrimination, without more, is too amorphous a basis for imposing a racially classified remedy”); Bakke, 438 U.S. at 308-09 , 98 S.Ct. at 2757-58 (Powell, J., concurring). Instead, the state must demonstrate that it had a “strong basis in evidence” for believing that race-based remedial action was “necessary” to remedy specific instances of racial discrimination, either public or private, within its own jurisdiction. Croson, 488 U.S. *444 at 500-06 , 109 S.Ct. at 725-28 (majority); see id. at 518 , 109 S.Ct. at 734-35 (Kennedy, J., concurring). While the state must “identify that discrimination, public or private, with some particularity” before it may take race-based remedial action, id. at 504 , 109 S.Ct. at 727 , it need not make an explicit finding of discrimination on the record, so long as it can demonstrate that it acted on the basis of evidence that would have permitted it to do so. See Wygant, 476 U.S. at 289-91 , 106 S.Ct. at 1854-56 (O’Connor, J., concurring).

Under these principles, we think it clear that a state may have a compelling interest in engaging in race-based redistrieting to give effect to minority voting strength, even when it has no reason to believe that the Voting Rights Act requires it to do so, where it has a substantial basis in evidence for concluding that such action is necessary to eradicate the effects of identified past or present racial discrimination in its own political processes. 35 Accord Hays I, 839 F.Supp. at 1215 (Walter, J., concurring). As a practical matter, a state defending a race-based redistricting plan against a Shaw-like challenge will seldom need to rely very heavily on this particular justification, for the evidence required to establish the existence of this compelling interest will normally be sufficient to demonstrate that the State had a firm basis for believing that race-based redistricting was required to avoid a potential § 2 violation, and thus that it had a compelling interest in taking such action to comply with the Voting Rights Act. But there may be eases in which a state will have a compelling interest in engaging in race-based redistricting to remedy identified instances of discrimination in its own political processes, even when it has no firm basis for concluding that § 2 requires it to do so: for example, when it has a history of official racial discrimination in its electoral system, which has resulted in the virtual exclusion of members of a particular racial minority from participation in its political processes, but it knows that the creation of majority-minority districts is not required by the “effects” prong of § 5, because it has never had such districts before, and that the relevant minority group cannot show that § 2 requires the creation of any majority-minority districts, because it is too widely dispersed to constitute a majority in a single-member district that is “geographically compact” under Gingles. For that reason, we think it important to recognize this as an independent compelling interest that may justify race-based redistricting.

3. Narrowly Tailored

We turn, finally, to the question of how to determine whether a particular race-based redistricting plan, if supported by a compelling state interest, is “narrowly tailored” to the achievement of that interest. Shaw itself has very little to say about this aspect of the strict scrutiny analysis, except to indicate that a plan which deliberately creates majority-minority districts in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act would not be “narrowly tailored” to that goal if it “went beyond what was reasonably necessary to avoid” a violation of the Act. — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2831. We therefore seek guidance in the Court’s decisions applying the “narrowly tailored” standard to other types of race-based remedial measures.

*445 In other contexts, the Supreme Court has looked to five basic factors to decide whether a race-based affirmative action program is “narrowly tailored” to further a compelling state interest in remedying identified discrimination: (i) the efficacy of alternative remedies; (ii) whether the program imposes a rigid racial “quota” or just a flexible racial “goal”; (iii) the planned duration of the program; (iv) the relationship between the program’s goal for minority representation in the pool of individuals ultimately selected to receive the benefit in question and the percentage of minorities in the relevant pool of eligible candidates; and (v) the impact of the program on the rights of innocent third parties. See United States v. Paradise, 480 U.S. 149, 171-85 , 107 S.Ct. 1053, 1066-74 , 94 L.Ed.2d 203 (1987) (plurality); id. at 186-89 , 107 S.Ct. at 1074-76 (Powell, J., concurring); Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, 478 U.S. 421, 485-89 , 106 S.Ct. 3019, 3054-57 , 92 L.Ed.2d 344 (1986) (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment); see also Croson, 488 U.S. at 507-08 , 109 S.Ct. at 729 (majority); Wygant, 476 U.S. at 279-84 , 106 S.Ct. at 1849-52 (plurality); Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448, 510-15 , 100 S.Ct. 2758, 2791-94 , 65 L.Ed.2d 902 (1980) (opinion of Powell, J.) (applying same strict scrutiny analysis to affirmative action plan adopted by Congress). 36 Though these factors were developed in the context of affirmative action programs in public employment and government contracting, we think they can be transposed fairly easily to the context of race-based redistrieting. See Hays I, 839 F.Supp. at 1206-09 (majority) (looking to same five factors in deciding whether a race-based redistricting plan is “narrowly tailored” under Shaw); id. at 1215 (Walter, J., concurring) (same).

The first factor requires the court to decide whether the state could have accomplished its compelling purpose just as well by some alternative means that was either completely race-neutral or made less extensive use of racial classifications. See Wygant, 476 U.S. at 280 n. 6 (plurality) (‘“whether a nonracial approach or a more narrowly-tailored racial classification could promote the [compelling] interest about as well and at tolerable administrative expense’ ”); Croson, 488 U.S. at 507 , 109 S.Ct. at 729 (majority); see also Sheet Metal Workers, 478 U.S. at 486-87 , 106 S.Ct. at 3055-56 (Powell, J., concurring); Paradise, 480 U.S. at 171-77 , 107 S.Ct. at 1066-69 (plurality); id. at 188 , 107 S.Ct. at 1075 (Powell, J., concurring); id. at 199-201, 107 S.Ct. at 1081-82 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). A state that has a compelling interest in engaging in race-based redistricting to comply with the Voting Rights Act obviously has no completely race-neutral alternative means of accomplishing that end. 37 *446 Compare Croson, 488 U.S. at 510 , 109 S.Ct. at 730-31 (plurality). In such a ease, the primary inquiry with respect to this factor will therefore be whether the state could have complied with the Act by enacting a redistricting plan which, though race-based, made less extensive use of racial classifications than the one it chose. 38 Because the “racial classification” at issue here is the use of race to assign voters to districts, we agree with the three-judge court in Hays I that inquiry here is properly confined to two questions: whether the plan creates more majority-minority districts than is reasonably necessary to comply with the Act, and whether the majority-minority districts it creates contain substantially larger concentrations of minority voters than is reasonably necessary to give minority voters a realistic opportunity to elect representatives of their choice in those districts. See Hays I, 839 F.Supp. at 1206-08 (majority); id. at 1218 (Walter, J., concurring). 39

The second factor requires a court to determine whether the challenged plan imposes a “strict racial quota” designed “to achieve and maintain racial balance,” or simply a “flexible goal” to be used as a “benchmark” for gauging the success of the state’s efforts to eliminate the particular discrimination in question. Sheet Metal Workers, 478 U.S. at 477-78 , 106 S.Ct. at 3050-51 (plurality); see id. at 487-88 & n. 4,106 S.Ct. at 3056-37 & n. 4 (Powell, J., concurring). As Justice O’Connor has explained repeatedly, a rigid racial quota is constitutionally impermissible, even to further a compelling interest in remedying identified discrimination, because it rests upon the “ ‘completely unrealistic’ assumption” that members of various racial groups would be represented in particular positions “in lockstep proportion to their proportion in the [general] population,” were it not for unlawful discrimination. Croson, 488 U.S. at 507 , 109 S.Ct. at 729 (majority); see Paradise, 480 U.S. at 197 , 107 S.Ct. at 1080 (O’Connor, J., dissenting). But race-based redistricting plans will seldom be invalid on this ground, for they do not impose the sort of “rigid racial quota” that the Court has previously found constitutionally infirm. Unlike the racial set-aside provisions invalidated in Bakke and Croson, a redistricting plan which creates a certain number of electoral districts in which members of a racial minority constitute a majority of the voting age population (or even of registered voters) does not guarantee members of that race a fixed percentage of the benefit ultimately at stake (here, membership in the relevant legislative body), for it does not prevent nonminority candidates for running for office in such districts, nor does it guarantee that they will not be elected from them. 40 See De Grandy, — U.S. at -, 114 S.Ct. at 2665 (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (“The assumption that *447 majority-minority districts elect only minority representatives ... is false as an empirical matter”). While such a plan guarantees the minority a fair opportunity to elect a certain number of representatives of their choice, that number cannot fairly be termed a “quota,” since there is no guarantee that it will be achieved; instead, can only be viewed as a flexible “goal” for minority representation in the relevant legislative body. See Sheet Metal Workers, 478 U.S. at 487 -88 & n. 4, 106 S.Ct. at 3056 & n. 4 (Powell, J., concurring). Compare Ravitch v. City of New York, 1992 WL 196735 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 3, 1992), at *7 (provision in city charter requiring racial minorities to be represented on appointed city commission in direct proportion to their percentage in the city’s population as a whole was not “narrowly tailored” to city’s compelling interest in remedying past discrimination, because it imposed a “rigid” racial quota).

The third factor asks whether the challenged affirmative action plan is a temporary measure with some built-in mechanism to prevent it from lasting longer than is reasonably necessary to eliminate the effects of the particular discrimination it is designed to redress. See Fullilove, 448 U.S. at 513 , 100 S.Ct. at 2792-93 (Powell, J., concurring) (a “temporary” measure that “will not last longer than the discriminatory effects it is designed to eliminate”); Sheet Metal Workers, 478 U.S. at 479 , 106 S.Ct. at 3051-52 (plurality) (a “temporary tool for remedying [identified] discrimination” that “will end as soon as ... it is no longer needed to remedy [that] discrimination”); id. at 487 , 106 S.Ct. at 3056 (Powell, J., concurring) (“of limited duration”); Paradise, 480 U.S. at 178 , 107 S.Ct. at 1070 (“temporary in application,” with a term “contingent upon the [state’s] own conduct”); see also Croson, 488 U.S. at 498, 109 S.Ct. at 724 (plurality) (not “timeless in its ability to affect the future”). A race-based redistricting plan governing elections to the United States Congress or a state legislature will almost always satisfy this requirement: such plans are inherently temporary in nature, because the states are, as a practical matter, required to redraw them after each decennial census, in order to even out irregularities in district population caused by intervening demographic changes. See Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725, 731 , 103 S.Ct. 2653, 2658-59 , 77 L.Ed.2d 133 (1983) (congressional districting); Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S. 315 , 93 S.Ct. 979 , 35 L.Ed.2d 320 (1973) (districting for state legislature). When the state legislature undertakes this redistrieting process after each census, it will of course be forced, by considerations of suits like this one, to reevaluate the continued need for race-based redistricting in light of the electoral experiences under the prior plan. Compare Ravitch, supra, at *7 (provision in city charter that required appointments to city commission to be made on basis of race was not “narrowly tailored” to its compelling purpose in remedying past discrimination, because it “made no provision whatsoever for its termination” but was of “indefinite” duration). 41

The fourth factor asks whether there is a reasonable relationship between the challenged plan’s goal for minority repre *448 sentation in the pool of individuals ultimately-selected to receive the benefit in question (be it a government contract, a place in a medical school class, or a job) and the percentage of minorities in the relevant pool of eligible candidates. See Paradise, 480 U.S. at 187 , 107 S.Ct. at 1074-75 (Powell, J., concurring) (such a goal must be directly related to “the percentage of minority group members in the relevant population or work force”); id. at 198-99 , 107 S.Ct. at 1080-81 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (“of vital importance” that such a goal “not substantially exceed the percentage of [eligible] minority group members in the relevant population or work force”). In the redistricting context, we think this factor is satisfied so long as the percentage of majority-minority districts created by the plan— which, as indicated earlier, is best seen as a flexible goal for minority representation in the pool of individuals selected to receive the ultimate benefit of membership in the relevant legislative body — does not substantially exceed the percentage of minority voters in the jurisdiction as a whole. Cf. De Grandy, — U.S. at -, 114 S.Ct. at 2658 & n. 11 (endorsing this notion of “proportionality” between the number of majority-minority voting districts and the number of minorities in the relevant population group as a rough proxy for the equality of political and electoral opportunity that the Voting Rights Act guarantees); id. at -, 114 S.Ct. at 2664 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (same).

The fifth and final factor asks whether the challenged plan “impose[s] an unacceptable burden on innocent third parties.” Paradise, 480 U.S. at 182 , 107 S.Ct. at 1072 (plurality); see Fullilove, 448 U.S. at 514-15 , 100 S.Ct. at 2793-94 (Powell, J., concurring). The Court has invalidated the use of racial preferences in selecting employees for layoff on this ground, because it “imposes the entire burden of achieving racial equality” on innocent individuals and causes “serious disruption” to their lives and “settled expectations.” Wygant, 476 U.S. at 283 , 106 S.Ct. at 1851-52 (plurality). But the Court has held that an affirmative action plan may be “narrowly tailored” to its goal of remedying identified discrimination even though it requires innocent third parties to bear some of the burden of eradicating the effects of that discrimination. See Wygant, 476 U.S. at 280-81 , 106 S.Ct. at 1850-51 (plurality) (“As part of this Nation’s dedication to eradicating racial discrimination, innocent persons may be called upon to bear some of the burden of the remedy”); id. at 287 , 106 S.Ct. at 1853-54 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (an affirmative action program designed “to further a legitimate remedial purpose” is not constitutionally invalid because it forces “innocent individuals” to bear some of the burden of the remedy, so long as it “do[es] not impose disproportionate harm on the interests, or unnecessarily trammel the rights, of innocent individuals directly and adversely affected by [its] racial preference”); Fullilove, 448 U.S. at 484 , 100 S.Ct. at 2777-78 (opinion of Burger, C.J.) (“such a sharing of the burden [of remedying the effects of past discrimination] by innocent parties is not impermissible”); id. at 514-15 , 100 S.Ct. at 2793-94 (Powell, J., concurring); see also Croson, 488 U.S. at 509 , 109 S.Ct. at 730 (plurality); id. at 518-19 , 109 S.Ct. at 734-75 (Kennedy, J., concurring). The Court has specifically found affirmative action plans which burdened innocent individuals to some degree to be “narrowly tailored” to a compelling interest in remedying the effects of past discrimination, where those burdens were “relatively light” and “diffuse” ones that “foreclosed] only one of several opportunities” and did not result in “serious disruption” of their lives or “settled expectations.” See Fullilove, 448 U.S. at 484 , 100 S.Ct. at 2777-78 (opinion of Burger, J.) (racial set-aside in government contracting); id. at 515 , 100 S.Ct. at 2793-94 (Powell, J., concurring); Sheet Metal Workers, 478 U.S. at 479 , 106 S.Ct. at 3051-52 (plurality) (racial goals in union membership); id at 488, 106 S.Ct. at 3056 (Powell, J., concurring); Paradise, 480 U.S. at 182-83 , 107 S.Ct. at 1072-73 (plurality) (racial hiring and promotion goals in public employment); id. at 188-89 , 107 S.Ct. at 1075-76 (Powell, J., concurring). See generally Wygant, 476 U.S. at 283, 106 S.Ct. at 1851-52 (plurality). In such cases, the “marginal unfairness” to innocent third parties is “outweigh[ed]” by the compelling interest in eradicating the effects of past or present discrimination. Id.; see Fullilove, 448 U.S. at 515 , 100 S.Ct. at 2793-94 (Powell, J., concurring).

*449 Plaintiffs and their supporting intervenors contend that, as the panel majority in Hays I held, a race-based redistricting plan imposes an undue burden on innocent third parties, hence is not “narrowly tailored,” if it deviates from traditional notions of geographical compactness, contiguity, and respect for the integrity of political subdivisions to a greater degree than is necessary to accomplish its compelling purpose. See 839 F.Supp. at 1208-09 (majority). In their view, strict scrutiny requires a court to invalidate a race-based redistricting plan whenever it finds that the legislature could have drawn some alternative plan that would have accomplished its compelling purpose while “do[ing] substantially less violence to traditional redistricting principles” — both those that are constitutionally-mandated, like the “one-person, one-vote” standard, and those that are not, like geographical compactness, contiguity, and respect for the integrity of political subdivisions. Id. at 1208 .

We agree with the district court in Hays I that a race-based redistricting plan imposes an unacceptable burden upon third parties, hence is not sufficiently “narrowly tailored” to survive constitutional muster, if it fails to comply with redistricting principles that are themselves constitutionally-mandated, like the “one person, one vote” standard and the prohibition against undue dilution of the voting strength of any identifiable group of voters. A plan which causes concrete and material harm to the voting rights of an identified group of persons in one of these two ways certainly imposes the sort of “unacceptable burden” on third party interests which cannot survive strict scrutiny, even when supported by a compelling state interest. But we cannot agree that a race-based redistricting plan imposes an unacceptable burden upon third parties simply because it deviates from traditional notions of geographical compactness, contiguity, and respect for the integrity of political subdivisions, which are not themselves constitutionally-mandated districting principles, to a greater degree than a federal court may think was necessary to accomplish the state’s compelling purpose.

As the Supreme Court has emphasized time and again, there is no general constitutional requirement that the states design their redistricting plans to produce districts that are compact and contiguous and that maintain the integrity of political subdivisions. See, e.g., Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735 , 752 n. 18, 93 S.Ct. 2321 , 2331 n. 18, 37 L.Ed.2d 298 (1973); White v. Weiser, 412 U.S. 783, 793-97 , 93 S.Ct. 2348, 2353-56 , 37 L.Ed.2d 335 (1973); see also Cline v. Robb, 548 F.Supp. 128, 132-33 (E.D.Va.1982) (three-judge court); Cook v. Luckett, 735 F.2d 912, 920 (5th Cir.1984). Compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions are of course rational districting principles which the states may take into account in designing redistricting plans. See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 578 , 84 S.Ct. 1362, 1390 , 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964); Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S. 315, 320-30 , 93 S.Ct. 979, 983-88 , 35 L.Ed.2d 320 (1973). But they are not constitutional imperatives, see Gaffney, 412 U.S. at 752 n. 18, 93 S.Ct. at 2331 n. 18 (“compactness or attractiveness has never been held to constitute an independent federal constitutional requirement” for state redistrieting schemes), and the Court has repeatedly rejected claims that a state redistrieting plan violates the Equal Protection Clause because it sacrifices these considerations in order to achieve other legitimate redistricting objectives, such as protecting incumbents, preserving the integrity of established neighborhoods, and recognizing the voting strength of various political parties. 42

*450 In Shaw itself, all nine members of the Court expressly reaffirmed the long-standing rule that adherence to traditional notions of compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions is not a general constitutional requirement for state redistricting plans. See — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2827 (majority); id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2841 (White, J., joined by Blackmun, J., dissenting); id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2843 (Stevens, J., dissenting); id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2849 (Souter, J., dissenting). And we find no indication that the Shaw majority intended to create an exception to this general rule that would make adherence to traditional notions of compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions a constitutional imperative for a certain class of redistricting plans: those designed to give effect to minority voting strength in order to further a compelling state interest in remedying identified discrimination in the state’s electoral processes. The majority held that a state legislature’s disregard of traditional notions of compactness, contiguity, and respect for the integrity of political subdivisions in crafting a plan which creates majority-minority districts is of some relevance in the Equal Protection analysis, because it serves (when combined with evidence of the racial makeup of the districts) as circumstantial proof that race played a sufficiently important role in the plan’s design to warrant application of strict scrutiny. Id.. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2826-27. But it made clear that compliance with these criteria was not to be used as the ultimate test of the plan’s constitutionality. See id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2826-27 (“We emphasize that [adherence to] these criteria [is] important not because they are constitutionally required — they are not, cf. Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735, 752, n. 18 , 93 S.Ct. 2321, 2331, n. 18 , 37 L.Ed.2d 298 (1973) — but because they are objective factors that may serve to defeat a claim that a district has been gerrymandered on racial lines”); see also id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2827 (“‘One need not use [adherence to these criteria] ... as an ultimate standard for judging the constitutionality of a gerrymander to recognize that dramatically irregular shapes may have sufficient probative force to call for an explanation.’ ”) (quoting Karcher, 462 U.S. at 755 , 103 S.Ct. at 2672-73 (Stevens, J., concurring)). 43 And while the Court remarked in dicta that a race-based redistricting plan designed to further an interest in remedying identified discrimination apart from the Voting Rights Act is “constitutionally permissible only when the State ‘employfs] sound districting principles.’ ” id. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 2832 (quoting UJO, 430 U.S. at 167-68 , 97 S.Ct. at 1010-11 (opinion of White, J., joined by Stevens and Rehnquist, JJ.)), we think it meant only that such a plan, like any other redistricting plan, must employ rational districting principles that ensure fair and effective representation to all citizens, see Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 568 , 84 S.Ct. at 1385 (redistrieting plan that was a “crazy quilt[ ], completely lacking in rationality, ... could be found invalid on that basis alone”), be they compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions, or any of a host of other race-neutral principles — including preservation of the core constituencies of incumbents and recognition of distinctive urban and rural interests — which a' state may legitimately and rationally take into account in designing electoral districts. 44 We therefore conclude *451 that Shaw itself cannot be read to hold that a race-based redistrieting plan is not “narrowly tailored” if it deviates from traditional notions of compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions to a greater degree than a federal court thinks is necessary to accomplish the state’s compelling purpose.

Nor do we believe that the Supreme Court will ultimately adopt a definition of “narrow tailoring” in the redistrieting context that requires consideration of whether the challenged plan deviates from traditional notions of compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions to a greater degree than is necessary to accomplish the state’s compelling purpose. As one set of commentators has suggested, such a rule would “confuse the purpose of Shaw’s strict scrutiny standard,” which is not to ensure that the state creates wise or aesthetically-pleasing districts, but to ensure that it “is not covertly pursuing forbidden ends” when it draws district lines. Pildes & Niemi, supra, at 584-85. It would also make little sense from a practical standpoint, for several reasons.

In the first place, compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions have little inherent value in the districting process. The ultimate purpose of legislative apportionment and redistrieting is to ensure “ ‘fair and effective representation for all citizens.’ ” Gaffney, 412 U.S. at 748 , 93 S.Ct. at 2329 (quoting Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 565-66 , 84 S.Ct. at 1383-84 ). Districts that are compact, contiguous, and respect existing political subdivisions have traditionally been thought to facilitate the realization of that goal, because they link together citizens who are likely to share common needs and interests, reduce the cost of campaigning, and make it easier for legislators to maintain close contact with their constituents. See Prosser v. Elections Bd., 793 F.Supp. 859, 863 (W.D.Wis.1992) (three-judge court). But, as plaintiffs’ own experts have testified, there is no consensus, nor even any empirical evidence, that adherence to these criteria is necessary to ensure fair and effective representation. See O’Rourke testimony, Tr. pp. 274-75; Hofeller testimony, Tr. pp. 139-42; Niemi Dep. at 83; O’Rourke Dep. at 89-93. As the Court explained in Reynolds , arguments that “geographic considerations” should receive primary emphasis in redistricting, while perhaps valid at one point in our history, are “unconvincing” today, because “[mjodern developments and improvements in transportation and communications” mean that small and compact legislative districts are no longer necessary to insure that all citizens have access to their representatives. 377 U.S. at 580 , 84 S.Ct. at 1391 . 45 *452 Nor are compact and contiguous districts which respect the integrity of political subdivisions any guarantee of fair and effective representation. As Reynolds demonstrates, and plaintiffs’ expert has conceded, even the most perfectly-shaped districts may “do great harm to fair representation,” O’Rourke Dep. at 89, and “the use of highly compact districts may be the most effective way to shut out a minority from equal participation.” Comment, Constitutional Challenges to Gerrymanders, 45 U.Chi.L.Rev. 845, 879 (1978). Requiring states to adhere strictly to these criteria in crafting remedial redistricting plans would thus serve “no obvious purpose.” Pildes & Niemi, supra, at 584-85.

Second, even if compactness, contiguity, and respect for political subdivisions had some inherent value, there is no “relatively simple and judicially manageable” standard, Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. at 149, 106 S.Ct. at 2819 (O’Connor, J., concurring in the judgment), for determining whether a particular redistricting plan deviates from these principles to a greater extent than is necessary to accomplish the state’s compelling interest. 46 While it is easy enough to determine whether a district is technically “contiguous” or not, there is no principled means of determining whether a district which satisfies this threshold requirement is still less contiguous than it needs to be. Nor is there any principled means of determining whether a congressional redistricting plan, which must deviate from the boundaries of established political subdivisions to some extent in order to comply with the constitutional command that it create districts which are as nearly equal in population as is mathematically possible, see Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U.S. 526 , 89 S.Ct. 1225 , 22 L.Ed.2d 519 (1969); Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U.S. 725 , 103 S.Ct. 2653 , 77 L.Ed.2d 133 (1983), nonetheless fails adequately to respect the integrity of those political subdivisions. Finally, there is no generally-accepted definition of what it means for a district to be “compact.” See Pildes & Niemi, supra, at 540-59. While plaintiffs’ experts and others have suggested a number of different ways in which district compactness can be measured mathematically, see Hofeller testimony, Tr. pp. 118-20; O’Rourke testimony, Tr. pp. 212-14; see also Karcher, 462 U.S. at 756 -57 n. 19, 103 S.Ct. at 2673-74 n. 19 (Stevens, J., concurring); R. Niemi, B. Grofman, C. Carlucei, & T. Hofeller, Measuring Compactness and the Role of a Compactness Standard in a Test for Partisan and Racial Gerrymandering, 52 J. Pol. 1155 (1990); Pildes & Niemi, supra, at 553-59, there is admittedly no consensus as to which of these is most valid. See B. Grofman, Criteria for Districting; A Social Science Perspective, 33 UCLA L.Rev. 77, 85 (1985) (“There are many different ways of applying a compactness requirement but *453 none is generally accepted as definitive.”). And even if there were, the long experience with state-law requirements of district compactness stands as vivid testimony to the fact that these proposed measures of compactness are not “judicially manageable.” See Karcher, 462 U.S. at 756 , 103 S.Ct. at 2673-74 (Stevens, J., concurring) (state compactness requirements “have been of limited utility because they have not been defined and applied with rigor and precision”); Pildes & Niemi, supra, at 529-31 (state compactness requirements have been “ineffective” in producing more compact districts, because the courts have been either unwilling or unable to enforce them). 47 The inquiry suggested by the Hays I Court thus promises to be “so standardless as to make the [principled] adjudication of [racial gerrymandering] claims impossible,” Bandemer, 478 U.S. at 157 , 106 S.Ct. at 2823 (O’Connor, J., concurring), which in turn will make it virtually impossible for the state legislatures to determine what is required to make a race-based remedial plan comply with the Constitution.

Finally, and most critically, the “narrowly tailored” inquiry suggested by plaintiffs would result in undue interference by the federal judiciary in matters that have long been thought to be the primary province of the state legislatures. From its earliest ventures into the “political thicket” of legislative reapportionment, Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549, 556 , 66 S.Ct. 1198, 1201 , 90 L.Ed. 1432 (1946) (opinion of Frankfurter, J.), the Supreme Court has hewed fast to the view that the task of redistrieting is fundamentally a political one for the state legislatures, see Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. at 586 , 84 S.Ct. at 1394 ; Burns v. Richardson, 384 U.S. 73, 84-85, 92 , 86 S.Ct. 1286, 1292-93, 1296-97 , 16 L.Ed.2d 376 (1966); Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. at 749, 93 S.Ct. at 2329-30 ; Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S. at 327 , 93 S.Ct. at 986 ; White v. Weiser, 412 U.S. at 794-95, 93 S.Ct. at 2354-55 ; Wise v. Lipscomb, 437 U.S. 535, 539-40 , 98 S.Ct. 2493, 2496-97 , 57 L.Ed.2d 411 (1978), into which the unelected federal judiciary should not intrude any more than is absolutely necessary to protect constitutional rights. White, 412 U.S. at 795, 93 S.Ct. at 2354-55. This “hands off’ approach is not some accident of history, but a deliberate recognition of the fact that the process of redistricting “is fundamentally a political affair,” Bandemer, 478 U.S. at 145 , 106 S.Ct. at 2817 (O’Connor, J., concurring), and that the state legislatures, as the very “fountainhead of representative government in this country,” Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 564 , 84 S.Ct. at 1384 , are the organs of government best situated to identify and strike an appropriate balance between the many different — and often conflicting — considerations that are at stake in it. Connor v. Finch, 431 U.S. 407, 414-15 , 97 S.Ct. 1828, 1833-34 , 52 L.Ed.2d 465 (1977); see Growe v. Emison, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 1081 (“[R]eapportionment is primarily the duty and responsibility of the State through its legislature or other body, rather than of a federal court”) (internal quotations omitted); Voinovich v. Quilter, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 1157 (“Because the States do not derive their reapportionment authority from the Voting Rights Act, but rather from independent provisions of state and federal law, the federal courts are bound to respect the States’ apportionment choices unless those choices contravene federal requirements.”) (internal quotations omitted). 48 The “narrowly tailored” analysis suggested by plaintiffs, which would force the federal courts “to attempt to recreate the complex process of legislative apportionment *454 in the context of adversary litigation” and embroil them in after-the-fact “second-guessing” of the wisdom of legislative judgments about how best to balance competing districting considerations that are not themselves of constitutional stature, Bandemer, 478 U.S. at 146-47 , 106 S.Ct. at 2817-18 (O’Connor, J., concurring), is fundamentally inconsistent with this principle. We do not believe the Shaw majority intended to “open[ ] the door to [such] pervasive and unwarranted judicial superintendence of the legislative task of [redistricting],” id. at 147,106 S.Ct. at 2818, and “bog[ ] [the federal courts] down in [such] a vast, intractable ... slough, particularly when there is little, if anything, to be accomplished by doing so.” Gaffney, 412 U.S. at 750 , 93 S.Ct. at 2330 . 49

It is one thing to tell the states that the Voting Rights Act does not give them license to engage in race-based redistricting, even with the “benign” purpose of giving effect to minority voting strength, unless they have a substantial basis for believing that such remedial action is required to comply with the Act; and that they must take care, even then, not to take race into account in drawing district lines any more than is reasonably necessary to provide minority .voters the “equal political opportunity,” De Grandy , — U.S. at -, 114 S.Ct. at 2658 that the Voting Rights Act requires. That is the fundamental point of Shaw, and it is a point well worth making, if this nation is ever to attain the goal that the Voting Rights Act itself was designed to bring about — that is, to overcome its long history of racial discrimination in electoral politics and transform its political system into one in which the color of an individual’s skin has no bearing on his ability to participate effectively in the political process. But it is another thing entirely to tell a state which does have a substantial basis for concluding that it must engage in race-based redistricting to comply with the Voting Rights Act that it can do so only if it draws districts whose lines are sufficiently “regular” or “pleasing” in their appearance to satisfy the aesthetic sensibilities of a handful of unelected federal judges. Shaw itself holds no such thing, and we do not believe its reasoning compels us to do so here.

For all these reasons, we cannot agree with the Hays I court that a race-based redistricting plan enacted to further a compelling state interest in complying with the Voting Rights Act imposes an unacceptable burden upon innocent third parties, hence is not sufficiently “narrowly tailored” to survive constitutional muster, simply because it deviates from traditional notions of geographical compactness, contiguity, and respect for the integrity of political subdivisions to a greater degree than a federal court later concludes was necessary to accomplish the state’s compelling purpose. Instead, we believe that such a plan imposes an undue burden on innocent third parties only if it fails to give equal weight to the votes of all individuals, see Reynolds, unconstitutionally dilutes the voting strength of any identified group of voters, see Whitcomb, Bandemer, or is not grounded in rational districting principles which ensure that all citizens receive “fair and effective representation,” see Reynolds, 377 U.S. at 568 , 84 S.Ct. at 1385 . So long as the plan stays within these basic constitutional boundaries, it “unsettles no legitimate, firmly-rooted expectation” on the part of any voter, Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. 616, 638 , 107 S.Ct. 1442, 1455 , 94 L.Ed.2d 615 (1987), including the nonminority voters it places in majority-minority districts, for no voter has a legitimate right to expect that he will be placed in a district in which he is part of the majority or that his preferred candidate will win, see Whitcomb, 403 U.S. at 149, 154 , 91 S.Ct. at 1872, 1875-76 ; UJO, 430 U.S. at 166 , 97 S.Ct. at 1010, nor does he have a legitimate right to expect that his district will have a certain shape, see infra n. 60. 50

*455 Of course, on current doctrine, a race-based redistricting plan that complies with these requirements may cause some “stigmatic” or “dignitary” harm to the voters — both minority and nonminority — that it “classifies” by race. Though we believe this harm is sufficient, on that doctrine, to give those voters standing to challenge the plan, see supra at 423-427, we do not think it suffices to establish that the plan imposes an “unacceptable” burden on innocent third parties for purposes of the “narrowly tailored” prong of the strict scrutiny analysis. Congress carefully considered the burdens that the drawing of district lines to give effect to minority voting strength would impose upon the citizenry when it enacted, amended, and extended the provisions of the Voting Rights Act that require the states to take such action to remedy the effects of past and present discrimination in their electoral processes. See UJO, 430 U.S. at 175-78 , 97 S.Ct. at 1014-16 (Brennan, J., concurring in part); Gingles v. Edmisten, 590 F.Supp. at 356-57 & nn. 17-20. See generally Boyd & Markman, The 1982 Amendments to the Voting Rights Act: A Legislative History, 40 Wash. & Lee L.Rev. 1347 (1983). And it made “a considered decision,” Fullilove, 448 U.S. at 473 , 100 S.Ct. at 2772 (opinion of Burger, C.J., joined by White and Powell, JJ.), after “substantial and careful deliberations,” UJO, 430 U.S. at 176 , 97 S.Ct. at 1015 (Brennan, J., concurring in part), that these burdens were not unacceptable, given the national consensus on the compelling need for “sterner and more elaborate measures” to eradicate the effects of the states’ “unre-

*456 mitting and ingenious defiance” of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments’ guarantees of racial equality in the exercise of the franchise. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. at 308-09 , 86 S.Ct. at 808-09 (1966); see McCain, 465 U.S. at 243-48 , 104 S.Ct. at 1042-45 ; City of Rome, 446 U.S. at 172-78, 180-83 , 100 S.Ct. at 1559-62, 1563-65 , 64 L.Ed.2d 119 . We are obligated to give considerable deference to Congress’ judgment on that score, see Fullilove, 448 U.S. at 472 , 100 S.Ct. at 2771-72 (opinion of Burger, C. J.), given its “specially informed legislative competence” in the area of voting rights, Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 656 , 86 S.Ct. 1717, 1726-27 , 16 L.Ed.2d 828 (1966), and the fact that the Voting Rights Act is an exercise of its “specific constitutional mandate” to enforce by “appropriate” legislation the guarantees of racial equality in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, Croson, 488 U.S. at 490 , 109 S.Ct. at 720 (opinion of O’Connor, J., joined by Rehnquist, C.J., and White, J.), a mandate which the Supreme Court has consistently recognized gives it unique and far-reaching remedial powers. Id. at 488 , 109 S.Ct. at 718-19 ; see Fullilove, 448 U.S. at 483 , 100 S.Ct. at 2777 (opinion of Burger, C.J.) (“[I]n no organ of government, state or federal, does there repose a more comprehensive remedial power than in the Congress, expressly charged by the Constitution with competence and authority to enforce the equal protection guarantees” of the Civil War Amendments); id. at 516 , 100 S.Ct. at 2794 (Powell, J., concurring); see also Metro Broadcasting, 497 U.S. at 605 , 110 S.Ct. at 3030 (O’Connor, J., joined by Rehnquist, C.J., and Scaliá and Kennedy,' JJ., dissenting) (“Congress has considerable latitude, presenting special concerns for judicial review, when it exercises its ‘unique remedial powers ... under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment’”). We believe that Congress “adequately struck th[e] balance” between the need for race-based redistrieting as a remedy for past and present discrimination in the states’ electoral processes and the burden that such measures impose upon innocent third parties when it enacted, and twice extended, “the carefully conceived remedial scheme embodied in the Voting Rights Act.” UJO, 430 U.S. at 175 , 97 S.Ct. at 1014-15 (Brennan, J., concurring). Any argument that the passage of time has thrown that balance out of kilter, or that those measures have accomplished their purpose and outlived their usefulness, is properly addressed to Congress, which has the power to call an end to the extraordinary remedial effort embodied in the Voting Rights Act, rather than to the federal courts. See City of Rome v. United States, 446 U.S. at 180-82 , 100 S.Ct. at 1563-64 (specifically refusing “to overrule Congress’ judgment that the 1975 extension [of § 5’s preelearance requirement] was warranted” in order “to counter the perpetuation of 95 years of pervasive vomination,” despite “undeniable” increases in the number of African-Americans registered to vote and elected to public office since it was first enacted).

III.

Findings of Fact 51

A. General Background

The Legislative Setting

As the General Assembly of North Carolina went about the task of congressional redistricting required by the 1990 decennial *457 census, several extra-legislative factors, newly at work, crucially shaped its deliberative process and the legislative decisions that emerged.

First off, population growth had produced a new seat to work into the ultimate plan, hence a need to divide the state geographically into twelve districts rather than the former eleven. Stip. 19. The legislature could not, therefore, start with the then-existing congressional districts and adjust them only as required by the one-person-one-vote principle coupled with the eternal problems of incumbency protection and raw partisan politics. 52 As plaintiff-intervenor’s expert witness testified, gaining a new (or losing an existing) seat always creates its own “turbulence” in the redistricting process. Hofeller testimony, Tr. pp. 135-36.

Next, new developments in the way that census data was organized geographically, both by the U.S. Bureau of Census and by state legislative staff, coupled -with new computer technology for processing and using that data in redistricting, had created new capabilities for rapid, accurate consideration and adjustments of proposed plans, and for line-drawing not so bound, as formerly, to existing political boundaries.

Without attempting a full description of these interrelated technical developments, the dramatic new capabilities they provided for the redistricting process can be summarized. In the first place, the critical redistricting data — total population, voting age population by race or national origin, voter registration by party and race — was now made available by the Census Bureau and state legislative staff not only at traditional governmental levels down to townships and precincts, but even further down to the level of the “census block,” a geographical unit usually smaller than precincts. Incorporated into a newly acquired computer software program along with digital map files, these allowed the rapid call-up and visual display on computer terminals of critical demographic and statistical data down to the census block level, along with geographic features — highways, streets, rivers, railroads — and political boundaries, including the 1980’s congressional district lines, throughout the state. And, in a further refinement developed by legislative staff, precinct election results in a number of recent statewide elections were included in the computer database, making available at the precinct level partisan voting patterns that might affect particular candidacies in potential districts. The capability thus provided to call up demographic and statistical data and on its basis to make district line adjustments at this geographic level had therefore significantly increased the flexibility of the redistricting process, freeing up the planners from their former confinement to existing political boundaries in attempting to “get the numbers right,” whether for basic one-person-one-vote purposes, incumbency protection, or for other purposes. Around 229,000 of these census blocks, with their associated demographic and statistical data, were now newly available for use as basic building blocks in the redistrieting process. This not only made possible a new degree of refinement in getting the numbers right (including the rather incredible achievement of mathematically perfect equal population districts), it also encouraged the drawing of boundary lines with more obvious irregularities and facial oddities than typically occurred under the less sophisticated methodology formerly available. For the new capability made it more possible than formerly it had been for the planners to yield to specific importunings for special treatment of narrowly confined local situations (such as incumbent residency) or to shift quite small numbers of desired types of voters (whether by party affiliation or race) in drawing district lines. And because the census block boundaries were either visible physical features or existing governmental unit lines, it was now possible to use them as boundary-defining portions of a district and thereby to split governmental units down to the precinct level between districts when the demands of numbers, or incumbency protection, or partisan political advantage were thought to require it. Stip. 29-33; Cohen testimony, Tr. pp. 283-86, 289-98, 412-13; Cohen Dep. 96- *458 113; Cohen Dep.Ex. 7; generally, D.Exs. 405, 416-35.

A third factor heavily influencing the redistricting process was a recently developed perception by the Republican Party of North Carolina and members of that Party in the General Assembly, freely conceded in this litigation, that it and they could derive partisan political advantage from the creation of as many majority-minority districts as arguably could be justified by the requirements of federal voting rights law. Pope testimony, Tr. pp. 1046; Hawke Dep. pp. 15, 18-19; Farr closing arg. Tr. p. 15. This perception, and Republican legislator action upon it, gave rise to powerful political cross-currents and unusual political alignments that figured critically in the redistricting process and that in turn bear significantly upon the issues in this case.

The bicameral state legislature that developed and enacted the challenged plan was heavily white by race, Democratic by party. In the Senate there were 36 Democrats, 14 Republicans; in the House, 81 Democrats, 39 Republicans. By race, the Senate had 45 white members, 5 African-American members; the House, 105 white members, 14 African-American members and one Native American member. Stips. 10-16. Congressional redistricting (unlike that for state legislative seats) was carried out as a shared responsibility of both houses. Bipartisan and bi-racial congressional redistricting committees were appointed for both Senate and House, that in the Senate being a sub-committee of a general redistricting committee chaired by Senator Dennis J. Winner. Senator Russell G. Walker was chairman of the Senate sub-committee, and Representatives Milton “Toby” Fitch, R. Samuel Hunt, III and Edward C. Bowen were co-chairman of the House Committee. All of these but Fitch, an African-American, were white, and all were Democrats. Stips. 24-27. They, together with House Speaker Dan Blue, an African-American, and Senator Dennis Winner, who was white, constituted what came to be the generally recognized “Democratic leadership” in devising the congressional redistricting Plan now challenged. Cohen testimony, Tr. pp. 308; Fitch testimony, Tr. pp. 661-663.

This “Democratic leadership” group, acting through the Senate and House redistricting committees, effectively directed the process that led ultimately to enactment of the challenged Plan. Their decisions from time to time as the Plan evolved were implemented at the mechanical, “line-drawing” level by the Director of the Bill Drafting Division of the General Assembly, Gerry Cohen, to whom that responsibility had been delegated. Using the computer resources above described, Cohen took his instructions from this group and translated them into district configurations that were then submitted for consideration to the redistricting committees and ultimately to the floors of the House and Senate for vote. 53 Cohen testimony, Tr. pp. 359, 379-80.

Basic Geographic and Demographic Features Affecting the Statewide Congressional Redistricting Process

Certain basic geographic and demographic features of the State — knowledge of whose essentials by the General Assembly we must assume — provided essential background for the statewide congressional redistricting process.

*459 Total state population, by the 1990 census, was 6,628,637. Of that total, 5,008,491 (75.-6%) were white; 1,456,323 (22%) were African-American; and 80,135 (1.2%) were Native American. Stip. 19; 1990 Census. This meant that each of the state’s twelve districts was required by constitutional “one person, one vote” principles to have a population as close as practicable to the “ideal” district population of 552,386. Stip.Ex. 10 p. 117. See supra n. 5.

North Carolina has three distinctive geographic regions, each with its equally distinctive history, culture, and economy: the Mountain region, the Piedmont region, and the Coastal Plain region.

The Coastal Plain, extending inland from the Atlantic coast roughly to the geologic fall line, historically has been and remains essentially rural and agricultural. It has no city with a population of 100,000 or more, and though it has a number of smaller cities such as Rocky Mount, Wilson, Goldsboro, Kinston, New Bern, Fayetteville and Wilmington, it is not as a region heavily populated. The Mountain region, running generally westward from the front range of the Appalachians to the Tennessee line, is also predominantly rural and sparsely populated, with only one city, Asheville, of any size.

The Piedmont, the foothill region lying between the fall line and the front range of the mountains, is by far the most heavily populated of the three regions. As of 1990, it contained 54.7% of the state’s population, all five of the State’s cities with populations greater than 100,000, and 47 of its 84 smaller cities and towns with populations greater than 5,000. Stuart Rpt., Fig. 1; id. pp. 15, 23-24. Within the Piedmont region, the “Piedmont Urban Crescent” constitutes a long-recognized distinctive subregion. Stip. Exs. 44-47. Extending through eleven counties in a general arc from Wake County at its eastern end southwestwardly to Gaston County at its western, it includes the State’s five largest cities, Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Charlotte. Stip. Ex. 47. Substantially industrialized, predominantly urban, and containing most of the State’s institutions of higher learning (including its three largest), it is rightly described as “the urban, economic and cultural heart and soul of the State.” Goldfield Dep.Ex. 1, p. 2.

Of great significance to the issues in this case is the location within the state of the 22% of its population that is African-American. While African-American citizens reside in every region of the State, they are by no means evenly dispersed throughout any, nor throughout the whole state. Instead, there are major, discrete concentrations of African-American population throughout the state, the most significant ones of which, reflecting historical forces dating from slavery, are in the Coastal Plain and the Piedmont. Within the Coastal Plain, there remains a large, dense concentration (50% or above of census tract total populations), long in place, in the heavily rural, agricultural northeast; and smaller dense concentrations, also long in place, in other rural areas further south in the region and in the historic “black sections” of the country towns that are scattered across this agricultural region. Within the Piedmont, there are dense concentrations in the historic “black sections” of the state’s five largest cities and of the other smaller cities — Burlington, High Point, Thomasville, Lexington, Salisbury, States-ville, and Gastonia — that are scattered across the Piedmont Urban Crescent, with no significant concentration in the rural areas between those cities. D.Ex. 415; Goldfield Dep.Ex. 1, pp. 8-11.

B. The Legislative Redistricting Process as Revealing of Legislative Intent and Purpose 54

Before developing any specific redistrieting proposals, the House and Senate redistriet *460 ing committees conducted a total of fifteen public hearings around the state during the spring of 1991. At these, they received citizen comments and suggestions, which had been invited by public notice, about the criteria the General Assembly should use in the redistricting process, and the ethnic, geographic, economic or other communities of interest it should consider. Stips. 38-42; Stip.Ex. 200, pp. 2-3, 8; Fitch testimony, Tr. pp. 665-67.

In mid-April, 1991, the committees jointly adopted written standards to guide the congressional redistricting process. These included compliance with one-person-one-vote requirements, the federal Voting Rights Act, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and 2 U.S.C. § 2c’s requirement of single-member districts; the use of contiguous territory; and the retention of precinct and census block integrity where compatible with the redistricting computer database. Stip. 43.

As these adopted criteria indicate, the committees were well aware that one of their principal considerations must be compliance with provisions of the Voting Rights Act and the federal constitution that protect racial minorities in matters of redistricting. To give special guidance in this area, the General Assembly had, in fact, employed special legal counsel experienced in voting rights litigation, who worked closely throughout with those directing the redistricting process. L. Winner Dep. pp. 38-39.

In the early stages of their deliberations, there was division within the councils of the Democratic leadership as to whether any majority-minority congressional districts need, and should, be drawn. There was sentiment within the Senate leadership group that none should be drawn, in the main because it would benefit the Republican Party. D. Winner Dep. pp. 13-15; Fitch testimony, Tr. pp. 665. There was opposing sentiment in the House committee that two could, and must under the Voting Rights Act, be drawn. And on the Republican side, there was a concerted move to encourage the drawing of two. Stips. 49, 54, 61; Cohen testimony, Tr. p. 461.

In the end, the Democratic leadership group came to the conclusion, presumably driven in part by the advice of legal counsel, that at least one such district must be included in the plan. Fitch testimony, Tr. pp. 665, 670-671. To this end, the redistricting committee chairmen then prepared a number of “base plans” which, beginning in May 1991, were presented to these committees, at a public hearing, and finally on the House and Senate floors. All included one majority-minority district centered on the large rural area of proportionately dense African-American population in the northeastern portion of the Coastal Plain, with an arm extending westwardly to include an African-American population concentration in the inner-city of Durham, on the eastern end of the “Piedmont Urban Crescent,” and another arm extending southwardly into the center of the Coastal Plain. Stip.Ex. 10, pp. 44-49. At the same time that these committee base plans were being considered, several Republican-sponsored alternative plans with two majority-minority districts were also being considered. In each of these plans, one of those majority-minority districts was located in the same area as the one included in all the committee-proposed base plans — in the northeastern and central portion of the Coastal Plain. Location of the second such district varied among the Republican plans, but the one receiving most support was that in the “Balmer Congressional 6.2” plan, which ran from downtown Charlotte at the western end of the Piedmont Urban Crescent southeastwardly approximately 200 miles through all or portions of a number of rural *461 counties along the South Carolina border (Union, Anson, Richmond, Scotland, Robeson, Columbus, Brunswick, and New Hanover) across the Coastal Plain into downtown Wilmington on the coast. Stip.Ex. 10, 23, 27. The achievement of a majority of minority voters in this proposed district depended upon aggregating the African-American voter population with the substantial Native-American (Lumbee Indian) population primarily concentrated in Robeson County. Cohen testimony, Tr. p. 412; Fitch testimony, Tr. pp. 682-684.

In any event, all of the Republican-sponsored two-majority-minority-district plans which went to floor vote were rejected on party-line votes, with all the African-American legislators voting against them. The plan eventually enacted, in mid-summer 1991, as Chapter 601 of the 1991 Session Laws, was a conference committee modification of the redistricting committees’ several base plans which included the single majority-minority district centered in the rural northeast and central portions of the Coastal Plan with an arm extending westward into the inner-city precincts of Durham. Stip.Ex. 10, pp. 44^49. This plan was supported by an overwhelming majority of the Democratic legislators, including all the African-American legislators. Stips. 55-60, 62-63. Stip.Exs. 17-18.

In submitting Chapter 601’s redistricting plan for preelearance by the Attorney General under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the state’s supporting materials defended its provision of a single majority-minority district against objections lodged to it by the ACLU, national and state Republican Party officials, Republican members of the General Assembly, and other groups, that its failure to provide two such districts should deny it preclearance. The thrust of the State’s submission was that the enacted plan, with its single majority-minority district, should pass muster under § 5 because it neither reflected a racially discriminatory purpose nor any retrogressive effect, nor would it result in a clear violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Stips. 64-65, 67-68; Stip.Ex. 21. In advancing this position, the State also emphasized the negative aspects of the various two-majority-minority district plans that had been proposed as alternatives to the enacted plan, and contended that adoption of none of those plans was required to warrant preclearance under § 5. Cohen testimony, Tr. pp. 311-17; Stip.Exs. 24-26.

Following up on the State’s written submission, members of the Democratic leadership group, Speaker Dan Blue, Senator Dennis Winner and Representative Toby Fitch, met with U.S. Department of Justice officials on two occasions, in September and December, 1991, to press for preclearance. Stips. 70, 71. All members of this delegation urged that preelearance was warranted under § 5, despite Senator Winner’s continued private belief that no majority-minority districts were legally required, D. Winner Dep. pp. 13-15, and Representative Fitch’s private belief that two should have been included and might yet be required to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Fitch testimony, Tr. p. 665. During this same period, the Republican leadership in the General Assembly and Republican Party officials at the state and national levels were actively -urging Justice Department officials to deny preelearance on the basis that the plan failed to include two majority-minority districts, which they believed to be required by the Voting Rights Act. Pope testimony, Tr. pp. 1048-54; Pope Dep. pp. 139 — 47; Stip. 69; Stip.Exs. 22, 23.

On December 18, 1991, the Attorney General objected to and refused to preclear the congressional redistricting plan enacted as Chapter 601 (as well as the State’s House and Senate redistricting plans), finding that the state had not met its burden, under § 5, of proving that the Plan did not have a raeially-diseriminatory purpose. The Attorney General’s objection letter explained the basis for this conclusion. The letter began by noting that “the proposed configuration of the district boundary lines in the south-central to southeastern part of the state appear to minimize minority voting strength given the significant minority population in this area.” It noted further that the General Assembly “was well aware of the significant interest on the part of the minority community in creating a second majority-minority congressional district in North Carolina,” and *462 that it had before it several alternative plans that provided for a second majority-minority district in the south-central to southeastern part of the state — some of which utilized “boundary lines that were no more irregular than [those] found elsewhere in the proposed plan” — but that it had dismissed the possibility of creating two majority-minority districts for reasons that appeared to be “pretextual.” The letter concluded that the General Assembly’s “decision to place the concentration of minority voters in the southern part of the state into white majority districts” appeared to be designed “to ensure the election of white incumbents while minimizing minority electoral strength.” Stip. 72, Stip.Ex. 27.

The Attorney General’s contemporaneous objection to and refusal to preclear the State’s House and Senate redistrieting plans also emphasized a belief that the legislature intentionally had acted to protect white incumbent interests by improperly minimizing minority voting strength in a number of identified instances. Stip. 72; Stip.Ex. 27.

The Attorney General’s refusal to preclear the congressional redistricting plan in Chapter 601 presented the legislature with a difficult decision. It could yield to the official objection and enact a new plan with two majority-minority districts, or it could seek a declaratory judgment from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia preclearing Chapter 601. Stip.Ex. 21. On this difficult issue, powerful conflicting views were brought to bear both from within the legislature and from without. From outside, several of the incumbent Democratic Congressmen who feared any revisions of their present districts encouraged the State to litigate, Stip.Ex. 20, while the Republican congressional delegation, which welcomed the prospect of such revisions, actively discouraged it. Stip. 73; Stip.Ex. 200, pp. 594-596. Within legislative ranks, there were comparable conflicting views, from a variety of motives. The Democratic leadership was not as one on the matter. While its members had come together,, despite some private misgivings, to support preclearance of the Chapter 601 single majority-minority district plan, those misgivings now led them to be of different minds about the proper course of action now that preclearanee had been denied. Some, believing that the Justice Department itself was simply trying to further partisan Republican interests by requiring two remedial districts, favored litigating the issue. Cohen testimony, Tr. pp. 321-322. Others, who had favored two districts all along as simply the right thing to do, but had been willing to compromise on one to achieve party consensus, now urged yielding to the Attorney General’s objection.

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