isn't it so that both the district court and alabama were laboring under the impression that retrogretion meant you have to keep the same numbers? >> the district court made an express fact finding here that our goal was to prevent substantial -- >> if that's a misunderstanding of what's section 5 requires, then the whole thing is infected by that mistake. >> well, i disagree with you about it being a misunderstanding. in 2006, congress told us we would not diminish the ability to elect black voters. my friend professor testified against the inclusion of that language in congress and he told them if they included that language it would, quote, lock in place, end quote the majority black districts in the south. if you cannot diminish the ability to elect, if there's a safe majority black district or 100% chance, you cannot drop that to where they have a 50% or 60% chance. that's what we were setting out to do. this court said that they have lead way in complying with section five that we do not have to hit things right on the top. >> i don't understand your response. there are different in

required to take into account the degree, if any, to which section 2 imposes something like a retrogretion requirement? do you know what that might be? >> i really honestly don't know how section 2 would necessary apply in this circumstance. by it complying with section 5, we necessarily complied with section 2 because it's a lesser standard. i do think -- the fact that we could have done -- if the plans were vacated, they're very likely to be the same planned reauthorized -- >> what would happen if on a do-over, the objective was to produce maximum republican representation in both houses of the legislature. and the way -- and in doing that, there was a drastic reduction in the number of african-american senators and representatives. would that be a violation of section 2? >> not necessarily. obviously be a lot more that would go into that analysis whether that violated section 2. you would have to look at each district. this plan actually gives proportional representation to black voters in alabama. they're 25% and they have about 25 majority black districts in the house and about 25% ma