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CHISOM V. ROEMER, 501 U. S. 380 (1991) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
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CHISOM V. ROEMER, 501 U. S. 380 (1991)
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Nos. 90-757, 90-1032
Argued April 12, 1991
(Emphasis added.) The United States, petitioner in No. 90-1032, subsequently intervened to support petitioners' claims, and the District Court ultimately ruled against petitioners on the merits. However, the Court of Appeals finally remanded the case with directions to dismiss the complaint in light of its earlier en banc decision in League of United Latin American Citizens Council No. 444 v. Clements, 914 F.2d 620 (LULAC), that judicial elections are not covered under § 2 of the Act as amended. There, the court distinguished between claims involving the opportunity to participate in the political process and claims involving the opportunity to elect representatives of minority voters' choice, holding that § 2 applied to judicial elections with respect to claims in the first category, but that, chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 381
(e) That the one-person, one-vote rule is inapplicable to judicial elections, Wells v. Edwards, 409 U. S. 1095, does not mean that judicial elections are entirely immune from vote dilution claims. Wells rejected a constitutional claim and, thus, has no relevance to a correct interpretation of this statute, which was enacted to provide additional protection chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 382
for voting rights not adequately protected by the Constitution itself. Cf. City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 446 U. S. 172-183. Pp. 501 U. S. 402-403.
STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WHITE, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, O'CONNOR, and SOUTER, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and KENNEDY, J., joined, post, p. 501 U. S. 404. KENNEDY, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 501 U. S. 418. chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 383
U.S.Const., Amdt. 15, § 1. In 1982, Congress amended § 2 of the Voting Rights Act [Footnote 2] to make clear that certain practices and procedures that result in the denial or abridgement of the right to vote are forbidden even though the absence of proof of discriminatory intent chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 384
The Louisiana Supreme Court consists of seven justices, [Footnote 3] five of whom are elected from five single-member Supreme Court Districts, and two of whom are elected from one multi-member Supreme Court District. [Footnote 4] Each of the seven members of the court must be a resident of the district from which he or she is elected and must have resided there for at least two years prior to election. App. to Pet. for Cert. 7a. Each of the justices on the Louisiana Supreme Court serves a term of 10 years. [Footnote 5] The one multi-member district, the First Supreme Court District, consists of the parishes of Orleans, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, and Jefferson. [Footnote 6] Orleans Parish contains about half of the population of the First Supreme Court District and about half of the registered voters in that district. Chisom v. Edwards, 839 F.2d 1056, 1057 (CA5 1988). More than one-half of the registered voters of Orleans Parish are black, whereas more than three-fourths of chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 385
"[i]t is particularly significant
Page 501 U. S. 386
that no black person has ever been elected to the Louisiana Supreme Court, either from the First Supreme Court District or from any one of the other five judicial districts."
839 F.2d 1058. After agreeing with the recently announced opinion in Mallory v. Eyrich, 839 F.2d 275 (CA6 1988), it noted that the broad definition of the terms "voting" and "vote" in § 14(c)(1) of the original Act expressly included judicial elections within the coverage of § 2. [Footnote 7] It also recognized Congress' explicit intent to expand the coverage of § 2 by enacting the 1982 amendment. 839 F.2d 1061. [Footnote 8] Consistent with Congress' efforts to broaden coverage under the Act, the court rejected the State's contention that the term "representatives" in the 1982 amendment was used as a word of limitation. Id. at 1063 (describing State's chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 387
position as "untenable"). Instead, the court concluded that representative "denotes anyone selected or chosen by popular election from among a field of candidates to fill an office, including judges.'" Ibid. (quoting Martin v. Allain, 658 F.Supp. 1183, 1200 (SD Miss.1987)). The court buttressed its interpretation by noting that
839 F.2d 1064. It also gleaned support for its construction of § 2 from the fact that the Attorney General had "consistently supported an expansive, not restrictive, construction of the Act." Ibid. Finally, the court held that the constitutional allegations were sufficient to warrant a trial, and reinstated all claims. Id. at 1065. [Footnote 9]
After the case was remanded to the District Court, the United States filed a complaint in intervention in which it alleged that the use of a multi-member district to elect two members of the Louisiana Supreme Court is a "standard, practice or procedure" that "results in a denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act." App. 48. After a nonjury trial, however, the District Court concluded that the evidence did not establish a violation of § 2 under the standards set forth in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986). chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 388
App. to Pet. for Cert. 62a. The District Court also dismissed the constitutional claims. Id. at 63a-64a. Petitioners and the United States appealed. While their appeal was pending, the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc in another case, held that judicial elections were not covered under § 2 of the Act as amended. League of United Latin American Citizens Council No. 444 v. Clements, 914 F.2d 620 (1990) (hereinafter LULAC).
Id. at 625 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 1973(b)). Noting that this language protects both the "the broad and general opportunity to participate in the political process and the specific one to elect representatives," LULAC, 914 F.2d 625, the court drew a distinction between claims involving tests or other devices that interfere with individual participation in an election, on the one hand, and claims of vote dilution that challenge impairment of a group's opportunity to elect representatives of their choice, on the other hand. The majority assumed that the amended § 2 would continue to apply to judicial elections with respect to claims in the first chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 389
category, see ibid., but that the word "representatives" excludes judicial elections from claims in the second category. See id. at 625-628.
LULAC, 914 F.2d 629 (quoting S.Rep. No. 97417, p.19 (1982)), persuaded the majority that, in light of the case law holding that judges were not representatives in the context of one-person, one-vote reapportionment cases, see LULAC, 914 F.2d 626 (citing cases), Congress would not have authorized vote dilution claims in judicial elections without making an express, unambiguous statement to that effect.
Following the en banc decision in LULAC, the Court of Appeals remanded this case to the District Court with directions to dismiss the complaint. 917 F.2d 187. App. to Pet. for Cert. 1a-3a (per curiam). It expressed no opinion on the strength of petitioners' evidentiary case. We granted certiorari, 498 chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 390
U.S. 1060 (1991), and set the case for argument with LULAC, see post at 501 U. S. .
It is also undisputed that § 2 applied to judicial elections prior to the 1982 amendment, [Footnote 14] and that § 5 of the amended statute continues to apply to judicial elections, see Clark v. Roemer, 500 U. S. 646 (1991). Moreover, there is no question that the terms "standard, practice, or procedure" are broad enough to encompass the use of multi-member districts to minimize a racial minority's ability to influence the outcome of an election covered by § 2. [Footnote 15] The only matter in dispute chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 391
79 Stat. 437. The terms "vote" and "voting" were defined elsewhere in the Act to include "all action necessary to make a vote effective in any primary, special, or general election." § 14(c)(1) of the Act, 79 Stat. 445 (emphasis added). The statute further defined vote and voting as "votes cast with respect to candidates for public or party office and propositions for which votes are received in an election." Ibid. chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 392
At the time of the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, § 2, unlike other provisions of the Act, did not provoke significant debate in Congress, because it was viewed largely as a restatement of the Fifteenth Amendment. See H.R.Rep. No. 439, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 23 (1965), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1965, pp. 2437, 2454 (§ 2 "grants . . . a right to be free from enactment or enforcement of voting qualifications . . . or practices which deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race or color"); see also S.Rep. No. 162, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, pp.19-20 (1965). This Court took a similar view of § 2 in Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 446 U. S. 60-61 (1980). There, we recognized that the coverage provided by § 2 was unquestionably coextensive with the coverage provided by the Fifteenth Amendment; the provision simply elaborated upon the Fifteenth Amendment. Ibid. Section 2 protected the right to vote, and it did so without making any distinctions or imposing any limitations as to which elections would fall within its purview. As Attorney General Katzenbach made clear during his testimony before the House, "[e]very election in which registered electors are permitted to vote would be covered" under § 2. [Footnote 16] chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 393
Justice Stewart's opinion for the plurality in Mobile v. Bolden, supra, which held that there was no violation of either the Fifteenth Amendment or § 2 of the Voting Rights Act absent proof of intentional discrimination, served as the impetus for the 1982 amendment. One year after the decision in Mobile, Chairman Rodino of the House Judiciary Committee introduced a bill to extend the Voting Rights Act and its bilingual requirements, and to amend § 2 by striking out "to deny or abridge" and substituting "in a manner which results in a denial or abridgment of." [Footnote 19] The "results" test proposed by Chairman Rodino was incorporated into S.1992, [Footnote 20] and ultimately into the 1982 amendment to § 2, and is now the focal point of this litigation. chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 394
"SEC. 2. (a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on
Page 501 U. S. 395
account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 4(f)(2), as provided in subsection (b)."
Respondents contend, and the LULAC majority agreed, that Congress' choice of the word "representatives" in the phrase "have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice" [Footnote 22] in section 2(b) is evidence chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 396
of congressional intent to exclude vote dilution claims involving judicial elections from the coverage of § 2. We reject that construction because we are convinced that, if Congress had such an intent, Congress would have made it explicit in the statute, or at least some of the Members would have identified or mentioned it at some point in the unusually extensive legislative history of the 1982 amendment. [Footnote 23] Our conclusion is confirmed when we review the justifications offered by the LULAC majority and respondents in support of their construction of the statute; we address each of their main contentions in turn.
The LULAC majority assumed that § 2 provides two distinct types of protection for minority voters -- it protects their opportunity "to participate in the political process" and their opportunity "to elect representatives of their choice." See LULAC, 914 F.2d 625. Although the majority interpreted "representatives" as a word of limitation, it assumed that the word eliminated judicial elections only from the latter protection, without affecting the former. Id. at 625, 629. In other words, a standard, practice, or procedure in a judicial election, such as a limit on the times that polls are open, which has a disparate impact on black voters' opportunity to cast their ballots under § 2, may be challenged even if a different practice that merely affects their opportunity to elect representatives of their choice to a judicial office may chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 397
not. This reading of § 2, however, is foreclosed by the statutory text, and by our prior cases.
"The plaintiffs' burden is to produce evidence . . . that its members
Page 501 U. S. 398
had less opportunity than did other residents in the district to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice."
Both respondents and the LULAC majority place their principal reliance on Congress' use of the word "representatives" instead of "legislators" in the phrase "to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." 42 U.S.C. § 1973. When Congress borrowed the phrase from White v. Regester, it replaced "legislators" with "representatives." [Footnote 26] This substitution indicates, at the very chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 399
least, that Congress intended the amendment to cover more than legislative elections. Respondents argue, and the majority agreed, that the term "representatives" was used to extend § 2 coverage to executive officials, but not to judges. We think, however, that the better reading of the word "representatives" describes the winners of representative, popular elections. If executive officers, such as prosecutors, sheriffs, state attorneys general, and state treasurers, can be considered "representatives" simply because they are chosen by popular election, then the same reasoning should apply to elected judges. [Footnote 27]
Respondents suggest that, if Congress had intended to have the statute's prohibition against vote dilution apply to the election of judges, it would have used the word "candidates" instead of "representatives." Brief for Respondents 20, and n. 9. But that confuses the ordinary meaning of the words. chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 400
The word "representative" refers to someone who has prevailed in a popular election, whereas the word "candidate" refers to someone who is seeking an office. Thus, a candidate is nominated, not elected. When Congress used "candidate" in other parts of the statute, it did so precisely because it was referring to people who were aspirants for an office. See, e.g., 42 U.S.C. § 1971(b) ("any candidate for the office of President"), § 1971(e) ("candidates for public office"), § 1973i(c) ("any candidate for the office of President"), § 1973i(e)(2) ("any candidate for the office of President"), § 1973l(c) ("candidates for public or party office"), § 1973ff-2 ("In the case of the offices of President and ice President, a vote for a named candidate"), § 1974 ("candidates for the office of President"), § 1974e ("candidates for the office of President").
The LULAC majority was, of course, entirely correct in observing that "judges need not be elected at all," 914 F.2d 622, and that, ideally, public opinion should be irrelevant to the judge's role, because the judge is often called upon to disregard, or even to defy, popular sentiment. The Framers of the Constitution had a similar understanding of the judicial role, and, as a consequence, they established that Article III judges would be appointed, rather than elected, and would be sheltered from public opinion by receiving life tenure and salary protection. Indeed, these views were generally shared by the States during the early years of the Republic. [Footnote 28] Louisiana, however, has chosen a different course. It has decided to elect its judges and to compel judicial candidates to vie for popular support just as other political candidates do.
The fundamental tension between the ideal character of the judicial office and the real world of electoral politics cannot be resolved by crediting judges with total indifference to the popular will while simultaneously requiring them to run for chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 401
elected office. [Footnote 29] When each of several members of a court must be a resident of a separate district, and must be elected by the voters of that district, it seems both reasonable and realistic to characterize the winners as representatives of that district. Indeed, at one time, the Louisiana Bar Association characterized the members of the Louisiana Supreme Court as representatives for that reason:
The close connection between § 2 and § 5 further undermines respondents' view that judicial elections should not be covered under § 2. Section 5 requires certain States to submit changes in their voting procedures to the District Court of the District of Columbia or to the Attorney General for preclearance. Section 5 uses language similar to that of § 2 chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 402
in defining prohibited practices: "any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting." 42 U.S.C. § 1973c. This Court has already held that § 5 applies to judicial elections. Clark v. Roemer, 500 U. S. 646 (1991). If § 2 did not apply to judicial elections, a State covered by § 5 would be precluded from implementing a new voting procedure having discriminatory effects with respect to judicial elections, whereas a similarly discriminatory system already in place could not be challenged under § 2. It is unlikely that Congress intended such an anomalous result.
Finally, both respondents and the LULAC majority suggest that no judicially manageable standards for deciding vote dilution claims can be fashioned unless the standard is based on the one-person, one-vote principle. [Footnote 31] They reason that, because we have held the one-person, one-vote rule inapplicable to judicial elections, see Wells v. Edwards, 409 U. S. 1095 (1973), aff'g 347 F.Supp. at 454, it follows that judicial elections are entirely immune from vote dilution chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 403
Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for the broad remedial purpose of "rid[ding] the country of racial discrimination in voting." South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 383 U. S. 315 (1966). In Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 393 U. S. 567 (1969), we said that the Act should be interpreted in a manner that provides "the broadest possible scope" in combatting racial discrimination. Congress amended the Act in 1982 in order to relieve plaintiffs of the burden of proving discriminatory intent, after a plurality of this Court had concluded that the original Act, like the chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 404
Fifteenth Amendment, contained such a requirement. See Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980). Thus, Congress made clear that a violation of § 2 could be established by proof of discriminatory results alone. It is difficult to believe that Congress, in an express effort to broaden the protection afforded by the Voting Rights Act, withdrew, without comment, an important category of elections from that protection. Today we reject such an anomalous view, and hold that state judicial elections are included within the ambit of § 2 as amended.
Chisom v. Edwards, 839 F.2d 1059-1060.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is not some all-purpose weapon for well-intentioned judges to wield as they please in the battle against discrimination. It is a statute. I thought we had adopted a regular method for interpreting the meaning of language in a statute: first, find the ordinary meaning of the language in its textual context; and second, using established canons of construction, ask whether there is any clear indication that some permissible meaning other than the ordinary one applies. If not -- and especially if a good reason for the ordinary meaning appears plain -- we apply that ordinary meaning. See, e.g., West Virginia University Hospitals, Inc. v. Casey, 499 U. S. 83, 499 U. S. 98-99 (1991); Demarest v. Manspeaker, 498 U. S. 184, 498 U. S. 190 (1991); United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 489 U. S. 241 (1989); Pennsylvania Dept. of Public Welfare v. Davenport, 495 U. S. 552, 495 U. S. 552 (1990); Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 242 U. S. 485 (1917); Public Citizen v. Department of Justice, 491 U. S. 440, 491 U. S. 470 (1989) (KENNEDY, J., concurring in judgment). chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 405
"No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied
Page 501 U. S. 406
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."
Ante at 501 U. S. 404. There are two things wrong with this. First is the notion that Congress cannot be credited with having achieved anything of major importance by simply saying it, in ordinary language, in the text of a statute, "without comment" in the legislative history. As the Court colorfully puts it, if the dog of legislative history has not barked, nothing of great significance can have transpired. Ante at 501 U. S. 396, n. 23. Apart from the questionable wisdom of assuming that dogs will bark when something important is happening, see 1 T. Livius, The History of Rome 411-413 (1892) (D. Spillan translation), we have forcefully and explicitly rejected the Conan Doyle approach to statutory construction in the past. See Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S. 578, 446 U. S. 592 (1980) ("In ascertaining the meaning of a statute, a court cannot, in the manner of Sherlock Holmes, pursue the theory of the dog that did not bark"). We are here to apply the statute, not legislative history, and certainly not the absence of legislative history. Statutes are the law though sleeping dogs lie. See, e.g., Sedima, S.P.R.L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 473 U. S. 495-496, n. 13 chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 407
(1985); Williams v. United States, 458 U. S. 279, 458 U. S. 294-295 (1982) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting).
42 U.S.C. § 1973(b) (emphasis added). Though this text nowhere speaks of "vote dilution," Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986), understood it to proscribe practices which produce that result, identifying as the statutory basis for a dilution claim the second of the two chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 408
phrases highlighted above -- "to elect representatives of their choice." [Footnote 2/1] Under this interpretation, the other highlighted phrase -- "to participate in the political process" -- is left for other, non-dilution § 2 violations. If, for example, a county permitted vote registration for only three hours one day a week, and that made it more difficult for blacks to register than whites, blacks would have less opportunity "to participate in the political process," than whites, and § 2 would therefore be violated -- even if the number of potential black voters was so small that they would, on no hypothesis, be able to elect their own candidate, see Blumstein, Proving Race Discrimination, 69 Va.L.Rev. 633, 706-707 (1983).
"As the statute is written, . . . the inability to elect representatives of their choice is not sufficient to establish a
Page 501 U. S. 409
violation unless, under the totality of the circumstances, it can also be said that the members of the protected class have less opportunity to participate in the political process. The statute does not create two separate and distinct rights. . . . It would distort the plain meaning of the sentence to substitute the word 'or' for the word 'and.' Such radical surgery would be required to separate the opportunity to participate from the opportunity to elect."
This has not generally been thought to protect the right peaceably to assemble only when the purpose of the assembly is to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. So also here, one is deprived of an equal "opportunity . . . to participate . . . and to elect" if either the opportunity to participate or the opportunity to elect is unequal. The point is, in any event, not central to the present case -- and it is sad to see the Court repudiate chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 410
Thornburg, create such mischief in the application of § 2, and even cast doubt upon the First Amendment, merely to deprive the State of the argument that elections for judges remain covered by § 2 even though they are not subject to vote dilution claims. [Footnote 2/2]
There is little doubt that the ordinary meaning of "representatives" does not include judges, see Webster's Second New International Dictionary 2114 (1950). The Court's feeble argument to the contrary is that "representatives" means those who "are chosen by popular election." Ante at 501 U. S. 399. On that hypothesis, the fan-elected members of the baseball All-Star teams are "representatives" -- hardly a common, if even a permissible, usage. Surely the word "representative" connotes one who is not only elected by the people, but who also, at a minimum, acts on behalf of the people. Judges do that in a sense -- but not in the ordinary sense. As the captions of the pleadings in some States still display, it is chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 411
the prosecutor who represents "the People"; the judge represents the Law -- which often requires him to rule against the People. It is precisely because we do not ordinarily conceive of judges as representatives that we held judges not within the Fourteenth Amendment's requirement of "one person, one vote." Wells v. Edwards, 347 F.Supp. 453 (MD La.1972), aff'd, 409 U. S. 1095 (1973). The point is not that a State could not make judges in some senses representative, or that all judges must be conceived of in the Article III mold, but rather, that giving "representatives" its ordinary meaning, the ordinary speaker in 1982 would not have applied the word to judges, see Holmes, The Theory of Legal Interpretation, 12 Harv.L.Rev. 417 (1899). It remains only to ask whether there is good indication that ordinary meaning does not apply.
There is one canon of construction that might be applicable to the present case which, in some circumstances, would counter ordinary meaning -- but here it would only have the effect of reinforcing it. We applied that canon to another case this Term, concerning, curiously enough, the very same issue of whether state judges are covered by the provisions of a federal statute. In Gregory v. Ashcroft, post, p. 501 U. S. 452, we say that, unless it was clear that the term "appointee[s] on the policymaking level" did not include judges, we would construe it to include them, since the contrary construction would cause the statute to intrude upon the structure of state government, establishing a federal qualification for state judicial office. Such intrusion, we said, requires a "plain statement" before we will acknowledge it. See also Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 491 U. S. 65 (1989); Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 473 U. S. 242 (1985); Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89, 465 U. S. 99 (1984). If the same principle were applied here, we would have double reason to give "representatives" its ordinary meaning. It is true, however, that, in Gregory, interpreting the statute to include judges would have made them the only high-level state chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 412
officials affected, whereas here the question is whether judges were excluded from a general imposition upon state elections that unquestionably exists; and, in Gregory, it was questionable whether Congress was invoking its powers under the Fourteenth Amendment (rather than merely the Commerce Clause), whereas here it is obvious. Perhaps those factors suffice to distinguish the two cases. Moreover, we tacitly rejected a "plain statement" rule as applied to the unamended § 2 in City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 446 U. S. 178-180 (1980), though arguably that was before the rule had developed the significance it currently has. I am content to dispense with the "plain statement" rule in the present case, cf. Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U. S. 1, 491 U. S. 41-42 (1989) (opinion of SCALIA, J.) -- but it says something about the Court's approach to today's decision that the possibility of applying that rule never crossed its mind.
While the "plain statement" rule may not be applicable, there is assuredly nothing whatever that points in the opposite direction, indicating that the ordinary meaning here should not be applied. Far from that, in my view, the ordinary meaning of "representatives" gives clear purpose to congressional action that otherwise would seem pointless. As an initial matter, it is evident that Congress paid particular attention to the scope of elections covered by the "to elect" language. As the Court suggests, that language, for the most part, tracked this Court's opinions in White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 412 U. S. 766 (1973), and Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 403 U. S. 149 (1971), but the word "legislators" was not copied. Significantly, it was replaced not with the more general term "candidates" used repeatedly elsewhere in the Act, see, e.g., 42 U.S.C. §§ 1971(b), (e); 1973i(c), 1973l(c); 1973ff-2; 1974; 1974e, but with the term "representatives," which appears nowhere else in the Act (except as a proper noun referring to Members of the federal lower House, or designees of the Attorney General). The normal meaning of this term is broader than "legislators" (it includes, for example, school chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 413
A second consideration confirms that "representatives" in § 2 was meant in its ordinary sense. When given its ordinary meaning, it causes the statute to reproduce an established, chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Page 501 U. S. 414
eminently logical, and perhaps practically indispensable limitation upon the availability of vote dilution claims. Whatever other requirements may be applicable to elections for "representatives" (in the sense of those who are not only elected by but act on behalf of the electorate), those elections, unlike elections for all office-holders, must be conducted in accordance with the equal protection principle of "one person, one vote." And it so happens -- more than coincidentally, I think -- that in every case in which, prior to the amendment of § 2, we recognized the possibility of a vote dilution claim, the principle of "one person, one vote" was applicable. See, e.g., Fortson v. Dorsey, 379 U. S. 433, 379 U. S. 436 (1965); Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73, 384 U. S. 88 (1966); Whitcomb v. Chavis, supra, 403 U.S. at 403 U. S. 149-150; White v. Regester, supra, 412 U.S. at 412 U. S. 765-767; see also Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U. S. 109, 478 U. S. 131-132 (1986). Indeed, it is the principle of "one person, one vote" that gives meaning to the concept of "dilution." One's vote is diluted if it is not, as it should be, of the same practical effect as everyone else's. Of course the mere fact that an election practice satisfies the constitutional requirement of "one person, one vote" does not establish that there has been no vote dilution for Voting Rights Act purposes, since that looks not merely to equality of individual votes, but also to equality of minority blocs of votes. (White itself, which dealt with a multi-member district, demonstrates this point. See also City of Mobile v. Bolden, supra, 446 U.S. at 446 U. S. 65.) But "one person, one vote" has been the premise and the necessary condition of a vote dilution claim, since it establishes the baseline for computing the voting strength that the minority bloc ought to have. As we have suggested, the first question in a dilution case is whether the "one person, one vote" standard is met, and if it is, the second is whether voting structures nonetheless operate to "minimize or cancel out the voting strength of racial or political elements of the voting population.'" Burns v. Richardson, supra, 384 U.S. at 384 U. S. 88. See also Note, Fair and Effective Voting Strength Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act: The chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
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Impact of Thornburg v. Gingles on Minority Vote Dilution Litigation, 34 Wayne L.Rev. 303, 323-324 (1987).
I frankly find it very difficult to conceive how it is to be determined whether "dilution" has occurred, once one has eliminated both the requirement of actual intent to disfavor minorities and the principle that 10,000 minority votes throughout the State should have as much practical "electability" effect as 10,000 nonminority votes. How does one begin to decide, in such a system, how much elective strength a minority bloc ought to have? I do not assert that it is utterly impossible to impose "vote dilution" restrictions upon an electoral regime that is not based on the "one person, one vote" principle. Congress can define "vote dilution" to be whatever it will, within constitutional bounds. But my point is that "one person, one vote" is inherent in the normal concept of "vote dilution," and was an essential element of the preexisting, judicially crafted definition under § 2; that Congress did not adopt any new definition; that creating a new definition is a seemingly standardless task; and that the word Congress selected ("representative") seems specifically designed chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
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to avoid these problems. The Court is stoic about the difficulty of defining "dilution" without a standard of purity, expressing its resolve to stand up to that onerous duty inescapably thrust upon it:
Finally, the Court suggests that there is something "anomalous" about extending coverage under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act to the election of judges, while not extending coverage under § 2 to the same elections. Ante at 501 U. S. 402. This simply misconceives the different roles of § 2 and § 5. The latter requires certain jurisdictions to preclear changes in election methods before those changes are implemented; it is a means of assuring in advance the absence of all electoral illegality, not only that which violates the Voting Rights Act but that which violates the Constitution as well. In my view, judges are within the scope of § 2 for nondilution claims, and thus for those claims, § 5 preclearance would enforce the Voting Rights Act with respect to judges. Moreover, intentional discrimination in the election of judges, whatever its form, is constitutionally prohibited, and the preclearance provision of § 5 gives the government a method by which to prevent chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
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As I said at the outset, this case is about method. The Court transforms the meaning of § 2 not because the ordinary meaning is irrational, or inconsistent with other parts of the statute, see, e.g., Green v. Bock Laundry, 490 U. S. 504, 490 U. S. 510-511 (1989); Public Citizen v. Department of Justice, 491 U.S. at 491 U. S. 470 (KENNEDY, J., concurring in judgment), but because it does not fit the Court's conception of what Congress must have had in mind. When we adopt a method that psychoanalyzes Congress, rather than reads its laws, when we employ a tinkerer's toolbox, we do great harm. Not only do we reach the wrong result with respect to the statute at hand, but we poison the well of future legislation, depriving legislators of the assurance that ordinary terms, used in an ordinary context, will be given a predictable meaning. Our highest responsibility in the field of statutory construction is to read the laws in a consistent way, giving Congress a sure means by which it may work the people's will. We have ignored that responsibility today. I respectfully dissent. chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanroblesvirtualawlibrary
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