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Proportionality is a loaded word.[qh]
比例是一个意味深长的词。[qh]
Section 2 explicitly disclaims the goal of proportional representation.[qh]
《第二条》明确否定了实现比例代表制的目标。[qh]
But the justices who decided Thornburg v. Gingles remained worried about the specter of proportionality.[qh]
但裁决索恩堡诉金格尔斯案的法官们仍然担心比例这个恐怖的标准。[qh]
While nominally unanimous, they produced four separate opinions. [qh]
虽然他们名义上意见一致，但他们实际上提出了四种不同的意见。[qh]
They were clearly grappling with whether the decision would hardwire a proportionality standard—in effect, a quota—into a statute that purported to reject it.[qh]
他们显然在纠结，这一裁决是否会将比例标准——实际上是一种配额——硬塞进一项意在否决它的法规中。[qh]
That concern has never fully been put to rest. [qh]
这种担忧从未完全平息过。[qh]
The statute remains unfinished business, like the fight over affirmative action, which the conservatives on the Court have been trying to finish off for decades. [qh]
这项法规仍是一项未完成的工作，如同围绕平权法案的斗争一样，法院中的保守派几十年来一直试图结束这场斗争。[qh]
It’s not by chance that voting rights and race-conscious university admissions have both ended up on the docket this term.[qh]
选举权案以及本学期具有种族意识的大学招生案都还在审理中，这并非偶然。[qh]
The same law firm—Consovoy McCarthy—is representing Alabama and the plaintiffs in two cases the Court will soon hear challenging any consideration of race in admission to Harvard and the University of North Carolina. [qh]
同一家律师事务所——康索沃伊·麦卡锡——正在代表阿拉巴马州和两起案件的原告，最高法院很快将听取对哈佛大学和北卡罗来纳大学录取过程中的种族考虑提出质疑的案件。[qh]
The firm’s founding partner William Consovoy, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, is one of the right wing’s go-to lawyers; he defended President Donald Trump in his efforts to shield various records from disclosure in 2019.[qh]
该事务所的创始合伙人威廉·康索沃伊曾是大法官克拉伦斯·托马斯的书记员，是右翼的得力律师之一; 他在2019年为保护唐纳德·特朗普总统的各种记录不被披露进行了辩护。[qh]
The firm’s two lawyers on the Alabama brief represent the rising generation: One clerked for Thomas and the other for Roberts.[qh]
该事务所的两名律师参与了阿拉巴马州案的辩护，代表着正在崛起的一代：一位是托马斯的书记员，另一位是罗伯茨的书记员。[qh]
Consovoy’s case against Harvard failed in two lower federal courts, but those defeats were a warm-up act.[qh]
康索沃伊起诉哈佛大学的案件在两家下级联邦法院败诉，但这些败诉只是热身。[qh]
Now comes the real show. [qh]
现在才是真正的表演。[qh]
The first line of his petition to the Court is breathtaking for its brash confidence—and its cheekiness: “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”[qh]
他向最高法院提交的申诉书的第一行话就令人震惊，因为言辞傲慢自负且厚颜无耻：“这是一件肮脏的事儿，这是用种族来区分我们。”[qh]
Instantly recognizable, this is a quotation from one of Roberts’s earliest Supreme Court opinions, in which he dissented from the majority’s finding of vote dilution in Texas, in a Section 2 case.[qh]
一眼就能认出来，这句话出自罗伯茨最早的最高法院意见书。在那篇意见书中，罗伯茨在《第二条》案中反对得克萨斯州多数派关于投票稀释的裁决。[qh]
Although the court decided Gingles 19 years before Roberts became chief justice, the case was no abstraction to him.[qh]
虽然法院在罗伯茨成为首席大法官的19年前就裁决了金格尔斯案，但对罗伯茨来说，这件案子对他来说不是什么抽象的东西。[qh]
Early in his career, he was deeply involved in a monumental political battle that ultimately led to the decision.[qh]
在他职业生涯的早期，他深陷一场巨大的政治斗争，最终导致了这一裁决。[qh]
