A Better Way to Put More Minorities in Congress Representation with Multimember Districts Can Do the Job without Racial Gerrymandering

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Recently a divided US Supreme Court invalidated five minority congressional districts - two in North Carolina and three in Texas - ruling that the use of race as a predominant factor in drawing district lines violated the Constitution.

This is not the first time that the high court has thrown out a majority-minority district. Last June the justices invalidated the Georgia congressional district of black Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D). The court's rulings in recent years have rolled back 30 years of voting-rights litigation and activism, casting a long shadow on the constitutionality of dozens of legislative districts, from the county to the congressional level, that were …