(Bench Opinion)
 NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being
done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.  The
syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared
by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.  See United
                                                                     ______
States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
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                       SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

                                    Syllabus

               LOPEZ ET AL. v. MONTEREY COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, ET AL.
                           ____

    APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF
                                   CALIFORNIA

        No. 95-1201.   Argued October 8, 1996 - Decided November 6, 1996

As a jurisdiction covered by S5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, appellee
 Monterey County (hereinafter County) must obtain federal preclearance - either
 from the Attorney General of the United States or from the United States
 District Court for the District of Columbia - of any voting practice different
 from its practices on November 1, 1968.  On that date, the County had nine
 separate and independent inferior court districts, the judges of which were
 elected exclusively by their respective districts' voters.  Between 1972 and
 1983, the County adopted six ordinances, which ultimately merged all the
 districts into a single, county-wide municipal court served by judges whom
 County residents elected at large.  This consolidation took place against a
 backdrop of California laws, some of which governed courts generally and
 others of which applied to the County's courts specifically.  In 1991,
 appellants, Hispanic voters residing in the County, sued in the District
 Court, alleging that the County had violated S5 by failing to obtain federal
 preclearance of the consolidation ordinances.  The three-judge District Court
 ordered the County to obtain federal preclearance of the challenged
 ordinances.  But the County did not submit the ordinances to the appropriate
 federal authorities.  Instead, the County began to work with appellants to
 develop a new judicial election plan that they believed would be less
 retrogressive than the at-large, county-wide election scheme.  The State of
 California, as intervenor, opposed the parties' proposed plans.  Ultimately,
 the District Court ordered the County to conduct judicial elections under an
 at-large, county-wide election plan.  In essence, four years after the filing
 of the complaint, the District Court ordered the County to hold elections
 under the very same scheme that appellants had















                                                                    I           

II                          LOPEZ v. MONTEREY COUNTY
                                 ____

                                    Syllabus


 originally challenged under S5 as unprecleared.

Held:  
_____
   1.  This Court leaves to the District Court to resolve on remand appellee
 State's threshold contentions that, although the County perhaps should have
 submitted the consolidation ordinances for federal preclearance before
 implementing them, intervening changes in California law have transformed the
 County's judicial election scheme into a state plan, for which S5 preclearance
 is not needed; that appellants' suit was barred by laches; that it is
 constitutionally improper to designate the County a covered jurisdiction under
 S5; and that the consolidation ordinances did not alter a voting "standard,
 practice, or procedure" subject to S5 preclearance.  Pp. 9-10.
   2.  The District Court's order that the County conduct elections under its
 unprecleared, at-large judicial election plan conflicts with Clark v. Roemer,
                                                              _____    _______
 500 U. S. 646, 652-653, in which the Court held, among other things, that a
 voting change subject to S5 is unenforceable unless precleared and that S5
 plaintiffs are entitled to an injunction prohibiting implementation of an
 unprecleared change.  Thus, an injunction is required where, as here, a
 district court must decide whether to allow illegal elections to go forward. 
 Id., at 654.  There is no "extreme circumstance" here that might justify
 ____
 allowing the 1996 elections to proceed, cf. id., at 654-655, and the District
                                             ____
 Court has not independently crafted a remedial electoral plan such as might
 render the preclearance requirements inapplicable, see McDaniel v. Sanchez,
                                                        ________    ________
 452 U. S. 130, 148-150.  Nor is the preclearance process' basic nature changed
 by the complicating factors that a simple injunction could leave the County
 without a judicial election system because a return to the 1968 plan appears
 impractical, and that the parties seem unable to fashion a plan that does not
 contravene California law.  Congress gave exclusive authority to pass on an
 election change's discriminatory effect or purpose to the federal authorities
 designated in S5.  See id., at 151.  On a complaint alleging failure to
                        ____
 preclear election changes under S5, a three-judge district court may determine
 only whether S5 covers a contested change, whether S5's approval requirements
 were satisfied, and if the requirements were not satisfied, what temporary
 remedy, if any, is appropriate.  See City of Lockhart v. United States, 460
                                      ________________    ______________
 U. S. 125, 129, n. 3.  The goal of a three-judge district court facing a S5
 challenge must be to ensure that the covered jurisdiction submits its election
 plan to the appropriate federal authorities for preclearance as expeditiously
 as possible.  Here, by protracting this litigation in order to obtain a plan
 that complied both with S5 and with state law, the District Court interposed
 itself into the S5 approval process in a way that the statute does not con-
 template.  Cf., e.g., Upham v. Seamon, 456 U. S. 37, 42-43 (per
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                            LOPEZ v. MONTEREY COUNTY                         III
                                 ____

                                    Syllabus

 curiam).  Pp. 10-15.
 __________

Reversed and remanded.

 O'CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.