by intentionally underpop ewe minority districts the irc violated the clause of one person, one vote. so, essentially, what happened was by overpopulating the other districts, the voters of the other votes diluted. and by diluting those votes, it violated the constitution. >> it sounds fundamental that a statute cant authorize a constitutional violation. so that even an attempt to comply with the voting re ining rights act is not compliant. have we ever said that in the context of the voting rights? >> your honor, this court has always held that the concept and the principle of one person, one vote. any attempts to undermine that outside -- >> so we have said that even minor deviations are not permitted if they are statutorily required? >> no statute can trump the constitution. the votes rights act, whichever way it's read, can't be read in a way to violate the one person, one vote clause. that is the state's position. we don't dispute or we're not saying to comply with the voting rights act may, indeed, be a legitimate state interest. what we're saying is when it's done in a systemat

fundamentally, the voting rights act, prior to shelby county could not compel an authority to underpop late districts. so the advice given, pop late the districts was flawed as a matter of legal advice. it doesn't justify malapportionment. so they could achieve, in the first map, they had two maps, a draft map and a final map. the draft map had a 4%, roughly devuation. their own expert said this map satisfies the voting right act. then they populated further the 8.8 devuation. >> they were mistaken. they could have done it without this disproportioning, but they thought that that was okay. they thought they were doing this in order to comply with the justice department. what's the test? is the test what they intended? or is it an objective test? >> i think you have to look at both. look at the objective test, does the voting rights act require you to depop late districts? >> let's assume the answer to that is no. >> right. >> but the people who made this were mistaken. they thought it allowed and indeed may require dwrou do that. so, that doesn't show a bad motive on their part, does i