Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
Page Number: 62

18 

BRNOVICH v. DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

way.  As we have put the point before: When a less racially 
biased law would not “significantly impair[ ] the State’s in-
terest,” the discriminatory election rule must fall.  Houston 
Lawyers’ Assn., 501 U. S., at 428.5 
  So the text of Section 2, as applied in our precedents, tells 
us the following, every part of which speaks to the ambition 
of Congress’s action.  Section 2 applies to any voting rule, of 
any  kind.   The provision  prohibits  not  just the  denial  but 
also the abridgment of a citizen’s voting rights on account 
of race.  The inquiry is focused on effects: It asks not about 
why state officials enacted a rule, but about whether that 
rule  results  in  racial  discrimination.    The  discrimination 
that is of concern is inequality of voting opportunity.  That 
kind of discrimination can arise from facially neutral (not 
just targeted) rules.  There is a Section 2 problem when an 

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5 The majority pretends that Houston Lawyers’ Assn. did not ask about 
the availability of a less discriminatory means of serving the State’s end, 
see ante, at 23, n. 16—but the inquiry is right there on page 428 (exam-
ining “if [the] impairment of a minority group’s voting strength could be 
remedied without significantly impairing the State’s interest in electing 
judges on a district-wide basis”).  In posing that question, the Court did 
what Congress wanted, because absent a necessity test, States could too 
easily  get  away  with  offering  “non-racial”  but  pretextual  “rationaliza-
tion[s].”  S. Rep., at 37; see supra, at 14.  And the Court did what it al-
ways does in applying laws barring discriminatory effects—ask whether 
a challenged policy is necessary to achieve the asserted goal.  See infra, 
at 26. 

Contrary to the majority’s view, that kind of inquiry would not result 
in “invalidat[ing] just about any voting rule a State adopts.”  Ante, at 24.  
A  plaintiff bears  the  burden  of  showing  that  a  less  discriminatory  law 
would be “at least as effective in achieving the [State’s] legitimate pur-
pose.”  Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 874 (1997).  
And “cost may be an important factor” in that analysis, so the plaintiff 
could not (as the majority proposes) say merely that the State can combat 
fraud by “hiring more investigators and prosecutors.”  Burwell v. Hobby 
Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U. S. 682, 730 (2014); ante, at 24.  Given those 
features of the alternative-means inquiry, a State that tries both to serve 
its electoral interests and to give its minority citizens equal electoral ac-
cess will rarely have anything to fear from a Section 2 suit.