Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 10

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

3 

Opinion of the Court 

time was City of Mobile v. Bolden, which involved a claim 
by black voters that the City’s at-large election system ef-
fectively excluded them from participating in the election of 
city commissioners.  446 U. S. 55 (1980).  The commission 
had  three  seats,  black  voters  comprised  one-third  of  the 
City’s  population,  but  no  black-preferred  candidate  had 
ever won election. 
  The  Court  ruled  against  the  plaintiffs.    The  Fifteenth 
Amendment—and  thus  §2—prohibits  States  from  acting 
with a “racially discriminatory motivation” or an “invidious 
purpose” to discriminate.  Id., at 61–65 (plurality opinion).  
But it does not prohibit laws that are discriminatory only 
in  effect.    Ibid.    The  Mobile  plaintiffs  could  “register  and 
vote without hindrance”—“their freedom to vote ha[d] not 
been  denied  or  abridged  by  anyone.”   Id.,  at  65.   The fact 
that they happened to lose frequently was beside the point.  
Nothing the City had done “purposeful[ly] exclu[ded]” them 
“from participati[ng] in the election process.”  Id., at 64. 
  Almost  immediately  after  it  was  decided,  Mobile  “pro-
duced  an  avalanche  of  criticism,  both  in  the  media  and 
within the civil rights community.”  T. Boyd & S. Markman, 
The 1982 Amendments to the Voting Rights Act: A Legisla-
tive  History,  40  Wash.  &  Lee  L.  Rev.  1347,  1355  (1983) 
(Boyd & Markman).  The New York Times wrote that the 
decision  represented  “the  biggest  step  backwards  in  civil 
rights to come from the Nixon Court.”  N. Y. Times, Apr. 23, 
1980, p. A22.  And the Washington Post described Mobile 
as a “major defeat for blacks and other minorities fighting 
electoral schemes that exclude them from office.”  Washing-
ton Post, Apr. 23, 1980, p. A5.  By focusing on discrimina-
tory intent and ignoring disparate effect, critics argued, the 
Court  had  abrogated  “the  standard  used  by  the  courts  to 
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prerequisite  to  voting,  or  standard,  practice,  or  procedure  shall  be im-
posed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge 
the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or 
color.”  42 U. S. C. §1973 (1970 ed.).