Court Opinion

ID: 9427886
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:11.329325+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:10.340087
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
concurring.
Although I join the Court’s opinion, the dissenting opinions prompt me to emphasize two points that are crucial to my analysis of the case; both concern the statewide nature of the remedy Congress authorized when it enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The critical questions are: (1) whether, as a statutory matter, Congress has prescribed a statewide remedy that denies local political units within a covered State the right to “bail out” separately; and (2) if so, whether, as a constitutional matter, such statewide relief exceeds the enforcement powers of Congress. If, as I believe, Congress could properly impose a statewide remedy and in fact did so in the Voting Rights Act, then the fact that the city of Rome has been innocent of any wrongdoing for the last 17 years is irrelevant; indeed, we may assume that there has never been any racial discrimination practiced in the city of Rome. If racially discriminatory voting practices elsewhere in the State of Georgia were sufficiently pervasive to justify the statewide remedy Congress prescribed, that remedy may be applied to each and every political unit within the State, including the city of Rome.
I
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act imposes certain restrictions on covered States and their political subdivisions, as well as on political subdivisions in noncovered States that have been separately designated as covered by the Attorney General pursuant to § 4 (b) of the Act. Section 4 (a) of the Act *191permits both States and separately designated political subdivisions in noncovered States to bail out of § 5’s restrictions by demonstrating that they have not engaged in racially discriminatory voting practices for a period of 17 years. In United States v. Board of Commissioners of Sheffield, Ala., 435 U. S. 110, the Court construed the word “State” as used in §§ 4 (a) and 5 to include all political units within a State even though they did not satisfy the statutory definition of a “political subdivision,” 1 and even though that definition had been added to the statute for the express purpose of limiting coverage.2
My opinion that the Sheffield Court’s construction of the Act was erroneous does not qualify the legal consequences of that holding. See Dougherty County Board of Education v. White, 439 U. S. 32, 47 (Stevens, J., concurring).3 Nor does it prevent me from joining the Court’s holding today that a political unit within a covered State is not entitled to bail out under § 4 (a) ,4 For both the plain language of the statute *192and its legislative history unambiguously indicate that only covered States and separately designated political subdivisions in noncovered States are entitled to take advantage of that provision. See § 4 (a) and H. R. Rep. No. 439, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 14 (1965), quoted ante, at 169. The political subdivisions of a covered State, while subject to § 5’s preclearance requirements, are not entitled to bail out in a piecemeal fashion; rather, they can only be relieved of their preclearance obligations if the entire State meets the conditions for a bailout.
Given the Court’s decision in Sheffield that all political units in a covered State are to be treated for § 5 purposes as though they were “political subdivisions” of that State, it follows that they should also be treated as such for purposes of §4(a)’s bailout provisions. Moreover, even without the Sheffield decision, it would be illogical to deny separate bailout relief to larger political units such as counties — which are clearly “political subdivisions” as that term is defined in § 14 (c) (2) — and to grant it to smaller units such as municipalities and school boards.
II
The second question is whether Congress has the power to prescribe a statewide remedy for discriminatory voting prac*193tices if it does not allow political units that can prove themselves innocent of discrimination to bail out of the statute’s coverage. In Part III-B of its opinion, the Court explains why Congress, under the authority of § 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment, may prohibit voting practices that have a discriminatory effect in instances in which there is ample proof of a longstanding tradition of purposeful discrimination. I think it is equally clear that remedies for discriminatory practices that were widespread within a State may be applied to every governmental unit within the State even though some of those local units may have never engaged in purposeful discrimination themselves.5 In short, Congress has the constitutional power to regulate voting practices in Rome, so long as it has the power to regulate such practices in the entire State of Georgia. Since there is no claim that the entire State is entitled to relief from the federal restrictions, Rome’s separate claim must fail.
I therefore join the Court’s opinion.

 Section 14 (c)(2) of the Act, as set forth in 42 U. S. C. § 1973Z (c) (2), provides:
“The term 'political subdivision’ shall mean any county or parish, except that where registration for voting is not conducted under the supervision of a county or parish, the term shall include any other subdivision of a State which conducts registration for voting.”

 See 435 U. S., at 142-143 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

 In any event, the city of Rome may be subject to § 5 even under the reasoning of my dissent in Sheffield. As noted above, political subdivisions (i. e., counties and other subdivisions that register voters) in covered States are clearly subject to the restrictions of § 5. In this case the city of Rome registered voters from 1964 to 1969, when the responsibility was transferred to Floyd County, soe Stipulation No. 5, App. 58. Thus, from 1965 to 1969, the city was clearly covered by the Act. Because it did not preclear the transfer of voting registration to the county, ibid., it at least arguably remains a “political subdivision” for purposes of both §§ 4 (a) and 5.

 It should be noted that there is some tension between the Court’s language in Sheffield and its statement today that Sheffield did not “suggest that a municipality in a covered State is itself a 'State’ for purposes of *192the §4 (a) exemption procedure.”- See ante, at 168. Compare the latter statement with, e. g., 435 U. S., at 128, where the Court stated that it was “wholly logical to interpret ‘State . . . with respect to which’ § 4 (a) is in effect as referring to all political units within it.” See also id., at 129, n. 17:
“Our Brother Stevens’ dissent misconceives the basis for the conclusion that § 5’s terms are susceptible of an interpretation under which Sheffield is covered. We believe that the term ‘State’ can bear a meaning that includes all state actors within it and that, given the textual interrelationship between § 5 and § 4 (a) and the related purposes of the two provisions, such a reading is a natural one.”
To the extent that the Court has disavowed the foregoing comments, I, of course, agree.

 The same principle applies to a court’s exercise of its remedial powers. Thus, in an antitrust action, a remedy may be appropriate even though it “curtail [s] the exercise of liberties that the [defendant] might otherwise enjoy.” National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679, 697. Similarly, in constitutional eases, a court may impose a remedy that requires more of the defendant than the Constitution itself would require in the absence of any history of wrongdoing. See, e. g., Houchins v. KQED, Inc., 438 U. S. 1, 40 (Stevens, J., dissenting). The Court has recently applied this principle to school desegregation cases, holding that a systemwide remedy — as opposed to a remedy concentrating on specific instances of discrimination — may be justified by a prior history of pervasive, systemwide discrimination. Columbus Board of Education v. Penick, 443 U. S. 449; Dayton Board of Education v. Brinkman, 443 U. S. 526.