Court Opinion

ID: 9425264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:14.380427+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:54.424075
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
with whom Mr. Justice Powell and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join,
dissenting.
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965' provides that a covered State may not put into effect any change in voting qualifications or voting standards, practices, or procedures until it either procures a declaratory judgment from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to the effect that the alteration does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color, or submits the alteration to the Attorney General and an objection has not been interposed by that official during the ensuing 60 days. In this case, the Attorney General interposed an objection on March 24, 1972, to the March 9 reapportionment plan of the Georgia House of Representatives and shortly thereafter sued to enjoin the use of that plan on the ground that the State had obtained neither the approval of the Attorney General nor a declaratory judgment. The District Court held § 5 was applicable to changes in state apportionment plans and that the section prevented the March 9 reapportionment from going into effect.
I agree that in the light of our prior cases and congressional re-enactment of § 5, that section must be held to reach state reapportionment statutes. Contrary to the Court, however, it is my view that the Attorney General did not interpose an objection contemplated by § 5 and that there was therefore no barrier to the March 9 reapportionment going into effect.
It is arguable from the sparse language of the Act, which merely says that the State’s modification will go *543into effect unless the Attorney General enters an objection, that any objection whatsoever filed by that official will suffice to foreclose effectiveness of the new legislation and force the State into the District Court with the burden of proving that its law is not unconstitutional. I cannot believe, however, that Congress intended to visit upon the States the consequences of such uncontrolled discretion in the Attorney General. Surely, objections by the Attorney General would not be valid if that officer considered himself too busy to give attention to § 5 submissions and simply decided to object to all of them, to one out of 10 of them or to those filed by States with governors of a different political persuasion. Neither, I think, did Congress anticipate that the Attorney General could discharge his statutory duty by simply stating that he had not been persuaded that a proposed change in election procedures would not have the forbidden discriminatory effect. It is far more realistic and reasonable to assume that Congress expected the Attorney General to give his careful and good-faith consideration to § 5 submissions and, within 60 days after receiving all information he deemed necessary, to make up his mind as to whether the proposed change did or did not have a discriminatory purpose or effect, and if it did, to object thereto.
Although the constitutionality of § 5 has long since been upheld, South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301 (1966), it remains a serious matter that a sovereign State must submit its legislation to federal authorities before it may take effect. It is even more serious to insist that it initiate litigation and carry the burden of proof as to constitutionality simply because the State has employed a particular test or device and a sufficiently low percentage of its citizens has voted in its elections. And why should the State be forced to shoulder that burden where its proposed change is so colorless that the *544country’s highest legal officer professes his inability to make up his mind as to its legality? If he is to object, must he not himself conclude that the proposed change will have the forbidden purpose or effect? Given such a proper objection, the matter would take on a familiar adversary cast; and there would then appear to be a solid basis — at least the probable cause that a federal charge usually imports — for insisting on judicial clearance. Moreover, the issues between the State and the United States, as well as the litigative burden the State would have to bear, could be known and examined and intelligent decision made as to whether to institute suit in the District Court. As it is, the State may be left more or less at sea; for the Attorney General need merely announce that he is not at all convinced that the law submitted to him is not discriminatory.
My idea as to the obligation of the Department of Justice with respect to a submission under § 5 is similar to what Congress itself has provided in § 4, 42 U. S. C. § 1973b (a). Under that provision, a State otherwise covered by the Act can terminate coverage as to it by securing a declaratory judgment that no discriminatory test or device has been used during the past 10 years. In that litigation, the section goes on to provide, the Attorney General must consent to the entry of such a judgment if “he has no reason to believe” that a discriminatory test or device has been used during the 10 years preceding the filing of the action. Thus, in even the far more important context of determining whether a State is in any respect covered by the Act, the Attorney General, if he is to object to a decree favorable to the State, must have reason to believe, and so state, that tests or devices with the prohibited effect have been employed in the past. Surely, where the issue is not termination vel non, but the purpose and effect of a single statute, regulation, or other modification of voting procedures, it *545is not untoward to insist that the Attorney General not object to the implementation of the change until and unless he has reason to believe that the amendment has the prohibited purpose or effect. He should not be able to object by simply saying that he cannot make up his mind or that the evidence is in equipoise.