Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
Page Number: 61

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

17 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

conditions.    The  classic  historical  cases  are  literacy  tests 
and poll taxes.  A more modern example is the one Justice 
Scalia gave, of limited registration hours.  Congress knew 
how those laws worked: It saw that “inferior education, poor 
employment  opportunities,  and  low  incomes”—all  condi-
tions often correlated with race—could turn even an ordinary-
seeming  election  rule  into  an  effective  barrier  to  minority 
voting in certain circumstances.  Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 
U. S.  30,  69  (1986)  (plurality  opinion).    So  Congress  de-
manded,  as  this  Court has  recognized,  “an  intensely  local 
appraisal” of a rule’s impact—“a searching practical evalu-
ation  of  the  ‘past  and  present  reality.’ ”    Id.,  at  79;  De 
Grandy,  512 U. S.,  at  1018  (quoting  S. Rep.,  at  30).   “The 
essence of a §2 claim,” we have said, is that an election law 
“interacts with social and historical conditions” in a partic-
ular  place  to  cause  race-based  inequality  in  voting  oppor-
tunity.  Gingles, 478 U. S., at 47 (majority opinion).  That 
interaction is what the totality inquiry is mostly designed 
to discover. 
  At the same time, the totality inquiry enables courts to 
take into account strong state interests supporting an elec-
tion  rule.    An  all-things-considered  inquiry,  we  have  ex-
plained, is by its nature flexible.  See De Grandy, 512 U. S., 
at 1018.  On the one hand, it allows no “safe harbor[s]” for 
election  rules  resulting  in  discrimination.    Ibid.    On  the 
other hand, it precludes automatic condemnation of those 
rules.  Among the “balance of considerations” a court is to 
weigh is a State’s need for the challenged policy.  Houston 
Lawyers’ Assn.  v. Attorney  General  of  Tex.,  501  U. S.  419, 
427 (1991).  But in making that assessment of state inter-
ests, a court must keep in mind—just as Congress did—the 
ease of “offer[ing] a non-racial rationalization” for even bla-
tantly discriminatory laws.  S. Rep., at 37; see supra, at 14.  
State  interests  do  not  get  accepted  on  faith.    And  even  a 
genuine and strong interest will not suffice if a plaintiff can 
prove that it can be accomplished in a less discriminatory