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Page Number: 89

44 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

flagrant.  383 U. S., at 328; see also id., at 315–317 (describ-
ing the limited issues presented).  Fourteen years later, City 
of  Rome  upheld  the  1975  Act  extending  §5’s  preclearance 
provisions for another seven years.  See 446 U. S., at 172–
173.    The  majority’s  reliance  on  these  cases  to  validate  a 
statutory  rule  not  there  at issue  could  make sense  only  if 
we assessed the congruence and proportionality of the Vot-
ing Rights Act’s rules wholesale, without considering their 
individual  features,  or  if  Katzenbach  and  City  of  Rome 
meant that Congress has plenary power to enact whatever 
rules  it  chooses  to  characterize  as  combating  “discrimina-
tory  . . .  effect[s].”    Ante,  at  33  (internal  quotation  marks 
omitted).  Neither proposition makes any conceptual sense 
or is consistent with our cases.  See, e.g., Shelby County, 570 
U. S., at 550–557 (holding the 2006 preclearance coverage 
formula  unconstitutional);  Northwest  Austin  Municipal 
Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U. S. 193, 203 (2009) (em-
phasizing the distinctness of §§2 and 5); City of Boerne, 521 
U. S., at 533 (discussing City of Rome as a paradigm case of 
congruence-and-proportionality review of remedial legisla-
tion); Miller, 515 U. S., at 927 (stressing that construing §5 
to require “that States engage in presumptively unconstitu-
tional  race-based  districting”  would  raise  “troubling  and 
difficult constitutional questions,” notwithstanding City of 
Rome). 
  In  fact,  the  majority’s  cases  confirm  the  very  limits  on 
Congress’ enforcement powers that are fatal to the District 
Court’s construction of §2.  City of Rome, for example, im-
mediately after one of the sentences quoted by the majority, 
explained the remedial rationale for its approval of the 1975 
preclearance  extension:  “Congress  could  rationally  have 
concluded  that,  because  electoral  changes  by  jurisdictions 
with a demonstrable history of intentional racial discrimi-
nation in voting create the risk of purposeful discrimination, 
it  was proper  to  prohibit  changes  that  have  a discrimina-
tory impact.”  446 U. S., at 177 (emphasis added; footnote