The Supreme Court has already ruled that there is not a VRA-protected congressional seat in northeastern North Carolina, because a black-majority seat would not be compact enough, back in 2017, and in fact that part of the opinion was literally unanimous. The area has not gotten more black since then; nor has the size of North Carolina congressional districts shrunk.
This is not to say that the
state Senate proposals are legal -- I think I actually agree that if the
Milligan precedent is applied consistently they are probably not. Right now it isn't being applied very consistently at all, though -- the Michigan state Senate map is much more clearly in violation, for instance. I also question how long
Milligan will really remain a thing, both given the specifics of Kavanaugh's concurrence and that there will inevitably be disputes over it creating logical impossibilities in some areas.*
*
Milligan says that, where it is possible to draw a "compact"** seat with a majority population for a particular minority racial group, a
performing seat which would elect the candidate of their choice must be drawn. (It does not itself need to have a majority for that group). However, in Dallas/Fort Worth, this creates a logical impossibility, because it is pretty easy to draw a compact Hispanic-majority seat but it is very hard -- I think impossible -- to create a performing seat on account of low turnout. That's the only one I'm certain about, but I suspect others exist, too.
**What does this mean? Your guess is good as mine! Mobile-to-the-Black-Belt is compact, but rural northeastern North Carolina with tendrils to black parts of cities is not (neither is Charlotte-to-Greensboro, and neither is Jacksonville-to-Sanford-to-Orlando). Beyond that, in many places we have to guess, although in some it's pretty obvious.
