SB8 is unconstitutional; states may never use race as a predominant factor in congressional districting under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

1) The question is whether a state may draw congressional districts where race predominates over traditional criteria like compactness and contiguity, even to comply with a federal voting statute. 2) Relevant text: Fourteenth Amendment §1 ('No State shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws'); Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 ('The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations'). 3) At ratification in 1868, Equal Protection meant states could not classify or discriminate by race in elections or laws, as framers rejected racial preferences and aimed for color-blind citizenship post-slavery; Article I §4 reserved districting to states using neutral criteria like geography, with no mention of race-based packing or dilution. 4) Holding: Race may not predominate in districting; SB8 fails because race drove its lines, violating Equal Protection regardless of statutory motives—VRA §2 cannot authorize what the Constitution forbids. 5) Downstream: States redraw maps using only traditional neutral criteria (compactness, contiguity, equal population, non-racial communities of interest); federal courts enjoin race-predominant maps; Congress's Article I §4 power limited to uniform non-racial rules; ends judicially mandated racial quotas nationwide.