Court Opinion

ID: 9426349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:38.041127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.445653
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan joins, dissenting.
Over the past 10 years the Court has, again and again, read the jurisdiction of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 439, as amended, 89 Stat. 402, 404, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (1970 ed., Supp. V), expansively so as “to give the Act the broadest possible scope” and to reach “any state enactment which altered the election law of a covered State in even a minor way.” Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 567, 566 (1969). See also Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S. 526 (1973); Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S. 379 (1971); South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301 (1966). While we have settled the contours of § 5’s jurisdiction, however, we have yet to devote much attention to defining § 5’s substantive force within those bounds. Thus, we are faced today for the first time with the question of § 5’s substantive application to a redistricting plan. Essentially, we must answer one question: When does a redistricting plan have the effect of “abridging” the right to vote on account of race or color?
The Court never answers this question. Instead, it produces a convoluted construction of the statute that transforms the single question suggested by § 5 into three questions, and then provides precious little guidance in answering any of them.
*146Under the Court’s reading of § 5, we cannot reach the abridgment question unless we have first determined that a proposed redistricting plan would “lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities,” ante, at 141, in comparison to their position under the existing plan. The Court’s conclusion that § 5 demands this preliminary-inquiry is simply wrong; it finds no support in the language of the statute and disserves the legislative purposes behind § 5.
Implicitly admitting as much, the Court adds another question, this one to be asked if the proposed plan is not “retrogressive”: whether “the new apportionment itself so discriminates on the basis of race or color as to violate the Constitution.” Ante, at 141. This addition does much- — in theory, at least — to salvage the Court’s test, since our decisions make clear that the proper test of abridgment under § 5 is essentially the constitutional inquiry.
Still, I cannot accept the Court’s awkward construction. Not only is the Court’s multiple-step inquiry unduly cumbersome and an unnecessary burden to place upon the Attorney General and the District Court for the District of Columbia, but the Court dilutes the meaning of unconstitutionality in this context to the point that the congressional purposes in § 5 are no longer served and the sacred guarantees of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments emerge badly battered. And in the process, the Court approves a blatantly discriminatory districting plan for the city of New Orleans. I dissent.
I
A
The Fifteenth Amendment provides:
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States *147or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 15, § 1.
Although the Amendment is self-enforcing, litigation to secure the rights it guarantees proved time consuming and ineffective, while the will of those who resisted its command was strong and unwavering. Finally Congress decided to intervene. In 1965 it enacted the Voting Rights Act, designed “to rid the country of racial discrimination in voting.” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 315. See also id., at 308-315. The Act proclaims that its purpose is “to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution . . . ,” 79 Stat. 437; the heart of its enforcement mechanism is § 5. In language that tracks that of the Fifteenth Amendment, § 5 declares that no State covered by the Act shall enforce any plan with respect to voting different from that in effect on November 1, 1964, unless the Attorney General or a three-judge District Court in the District of Columbia declares that such plan
“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 . . . .” 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (1970 ed., Supp. V).1
While the substantive reach of § 5 is somewhat broader than that of the Fifteenth Amendment in at least one regard — the burden of proof is shifted from diseriminatee *148to discriminator2 — § 5 is undoubtedly tied to the standards of the Constitution.3 Thus, it is questionable whether the “purpose and effect” language states anything more than the constitutional standard,4 and it is *149clear that the “denying or abridging” phrase does no more- than directly adopt the language of the Fifteenth Amendment.
In justifying its convoluted construction of § 5, however, the Court never deals with the fact that, by its plain language, § 5 does no more than adopt, or arguably expand,5 the constitutional standard. Since it has never *150been held, or even suggested, that the constitutional standard requires an inquiry into whether a redistricting plan is “ameliorative” or “retrogressive,” a fortiori there is no basis for so reading § 5. While the Court attempts to provide a basis by relying on the asserted purpose of § 5 — to preserve present Negro voting strength 6 — it is wholly unsuccessful. What superficial credibility the argument musters is achieved by ignoring not only the statutory language, but also at least three other purposes behind § 5.7
*151Thus, the legislative history of the Voting Rights Act makes clear, and the Court assiduously ignores, that § 5 was designed to preclude new districting plans that “perpetuate discrimination,” 8 to prevent covered jurisdictions *152from “circumventing the guarantees of the 15th amendment” by switching to new, and discriminatory, district-ing plans the moment litigants appear on the verge of having an existing one declared unconstitutional,9 and promptly to end discrimination in voting by pressuring covered jurisdictions to remove all vestiges of discrimination from their enactments before submitting them for preclearance.10 None of these purposes is furthered by an inquiry into whether a proposed districting plan is “ameliorative” or “retrogressive.” Indeed, the statement of these purposes is alone sufficient to demonstrate the error of the Court’s construction.
*153All the purposes of the statute are met, however, by the inquiry § 5’s language plainly contemplates: whether, in absolute terms, the covered jurisdiction can show that its proposed plan meets the constitutional standard. Because it is consistent with both the statutory language and the legislative purposes, this is the proper construction of the provision. Thus, it is the effect of the plan itself, rather than the effect of the change in plans, that should be at issue in a § 5 proceeding.11
Ultimately, the Court admits as much by adding an inquiry into whether the proposed plan, even if “ameliorative,” is constitutional. After this admission, I cannot understand why the Court bothers at all with its preliminary inquiry into the nature of the change of plans, since the inquiry not only adds nothing, but will, I fear, prove to be a time-consuming distraction from the important business of assessing the constitutionality of the proposed plan.12 Except for this unnecessary step, how*154ever, the Court’s final reading of the statute, on its face, no more than duplicates my own.13 Nonetheless, I still do not accept the Court’s approach. After properly re*155turning the constitutional inquiry to the § 5 proceeding, the Court inexplicably tosses off the question in a footnote, and never undertakes the analysis that both our constitutional cases and our § 5 cases have demanded.14 This ultimate denigration of the constitutional standard is a result far short of the promise Congress held out in *156enacting, and re-enacting, the Voting Rights Act, and it is one in which I cannot join.
B
The proper test in § 5 redistricting cases is preordained by our prior cases, which are ignored today by the Court. As suggested above, we have repeatedly recognized the relevance of constitutional standards to the proper construction of § 5. Thus, we have held that in passing that provision “ 'Congress intended to adopt the concept of voting articulated in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964), and protect Negroes against a dilution of their voting power. ’ ” Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S., at 390, quoting Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393 U. S., at 588 (opinion of Harlan, J.). See also Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S., at 532-533; Allen v. State Board of Elections, supra, at 565-566, 569.15 In the Fourteenth Amendment Reynolds line of cases, we have made clear that dilution of voting power refers to resulting voting strength that is something less *157than potential (i. e., proportional) power, not to a reduction of existing power. White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 765-766 (1973); Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 149 (1971). Nonetheless, we have also acknowledged that a showing of less than proportional representation of Negroes by Negro-elected representatives is not alone sufficient to prove unconstitutional dilution:
“To sustain such claims [of dilution], it is not enough that the racial group allegedly discriminated against has not had legislative seats in proportion to its voting potential. The plaintiffs’ burden is to produce evidence to support findings that the political processes leading to nomination and election were not equally open to participation by the group in question — that its members had less opportunity than did other residents in the district to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice.” White v. Regester, supra, at 765-766.
See also Whitcomb v. Chavis, supra, at 149.16
It is this constitutionally based concept of dilution that we have held to govern in § 5 proceedings. The concept may be readily transferred to the § 5 context simply by adjusting for the shifted burden of proof. Thus, if the proposed redistricting plan underrepresents minority group members, the burden is on the covered *158jurisdiction to show that “the political processes leading to nomination and election were . . . equally open to participation by the group in question.” 17 If the jurisdiction cannot make such a showing, then the proposed plan must be rejected, unless compelling reasons for its adoption can be demonstrated.18
II
• Application of these standards to the case before us is straightforward. Preliminarily, while I agree with the Court that the two at-large seats on the New Orleans City Council are not themselves before the Court for approval and cannot serve as an independent basis for the rejection of Plan II, I do not think Plan II should be assessed without regard to the seven-member council it is designed to fill. Proportional representation of Negroes among the five district seats on the council does not assure Negroes proportional representation on the entire council when, as the District Court found, the two at-large seats will be occupied by white-elected mem*159bers. The Court’s approach of focusing only on the five districts would allow covered municipalities to conceal discriminatory changes by making them a step at a time, and sending one two- or three-district alteration after another to the Attorney General for approval. If nothing beyond the districts actually before him could be considered, discriminatory effects could be camouflaged and the prophylactic purposes of the Act readily evaded.19
Thus the District Court correctly began by considering the seven-member council and a districting plan that, given New Orleans’ long history of racial bloc voting,20 allows Negroes the expectation of no more than one seat (14% of the council), if that, in a city with a 34.5% Negro voting population. Manifestly, the plan serves to underrepresent the Negro voting population. The District Court then, properly, turned to consider whether Negroes are excluded from full participation in the political processes in New Orleans. The court found con*160siderable evidence of both past and present exclusion, none of which is seriously contested here.21
The court found that Louisiana’s majority-vote requirement and “anti-single-shot” requirement operate as a practical matter to defeat Negroes in any district in which they do not constitute a majority,22 that residual effects of Louisiana’s long history of racial discrimination not only in voting, but also in public schools, public assemblies, public recreational facilities, public transportation, housing, and employment, remain; and that city officeholders have generally been unresponsive to the needs of the Negro community. The court looked to the many tactics that, until recently, had been employed with remarkable success to keep Negroes from voting in the State. See Louisiana v. United States, 380 U. S. 145, 147-150 (1965). And the court found that Negro access to the political process is even further narrowed by the fact that candidates in the all-important Democratic primary run on tickets. For a city council candidate to win nomination, which is tantamount to victory in the general election, it is critical to be placed on the ticket of the winning, always white, mayoral candidate. Negro candidates for city council, however, have never been placed on such a ticket. Indeed, no Negro has ever *161been elected to the city council, and the court found that on the rare occasions when a Negro has been elected to any office in the city, it has been because of the support of white candidates or of the white political organization, not because of the power of the Negro electorate. These findings plainly support the District Court’s conclusion that the political processes of New Orleans are not open to Negroes on an equal basis with whites.
Since Negroes are underrepresented by Plan II and have been denied equal access to the political processes in New Orleans, Plan II infringes upon constitutionally protected rights, and only a compelling justification can save the plan. The very nature of the Negro community in New Orleans and the manner of its distortion by Plan II immediately place the city’s explanations in a suspect light. The Negro community is not dispersed, but rather is collected in a concentrated curving band that runs roughly east-west. The districts in Plan II run north-south and divide the Negro community into five parts. Counsel for intervenor Jackson vividly described the effect of this division at oral argument:
“You can walk from Jefferson Parish throughout the city for eight or ten miles through the St. Bernard Parish line and not see a white face along that band, that black belt, that parallels the river in a curve fashion throughout the city. White people live in the very wealthy sections of town out by the lake and along St. Charles Avenue to the river. The rest is left over for blacks, and these are heavy concentrations, and that plan devised by the City Council slices up that population like so many pieces of bologna . . . .” Tr. of Oral Arg. 30.
As Jonathan A. Eckert, the council staff member pri*162marily responsible for drafting Plan II, conceded in the District Court, the “inevitable result” of Plan IPs north-south orientation is “to have districts in which blacks are generally in the minority, or at the most in a bare majority.” 2 App. 346.
New Orleans relies on seven goals that it claims mandate a north-south scheme such as Plan II. The city’s own belief in this conclusion is questionable in light of Mr. Eckert’s testimony in the District Court that he and his staff had drafted at least two east-west plans that satisfied them. 1 App. 336-337. In any case, however, the asserted goals, whether taken alone or in combination, do not establish a compelling justification for the plan. One claimed purpose is to prevent dilution of the vote of minority groups. Plan II plainly does not achieve this goal. Two other asserted aims are to achieve substantial numerical equality among the five districts and to keep the resultant districts compact and contiguous. Both aims can be accomplished by any number of east-west plans as well. Three more proffered justifications are to preserve ward and precinct lines, natural boundaries, and manmade boundaries. But there are findings that ward lines cannot be observed in any case because of one-person, one-vote restrictions, and that precincts are sufficiently small that their integrity can be honored in east-west districts. This latter fact minimizes any adverse effects of violating natural and manmade boundaries, except to the extent that they divide communities of different social or economic interests. And Plan II only erratically keeps such communities intact.
It is only the seventh of the proffered goals that, if compelling, mandates a north-south scheme: keeping incumbents apart in the new districts so that they will *163not have to run against one another for re-election.23 Four of the five district councilmen live in an east-west line along the lake in the northern part of the city. East-west districts would place all four in the same one or two districts, 1 App. 125, 232, 235, and north-south lines are therefore necessary if these councilmen are to remain apart. 2 App. 344. While the desire to keep incumbents in separate districts may have merit in some contexts, it surely cannot stand alone to justify the substantial dilution of minority voting rights found here.
Thus, the city has failed to show an acceptable justification for the racially dilutive effect of Plan II. Accordingly, the District Court correctly concluded that appellants failed to demonstrate that Plan II would not have the effect of abridging the right to vote on account of race, and correctly denied the requested declaratory judgment.24

 Section 5 actually requires that “any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” different from that in effect on November 1, 1964, be approved by the Attorney General or the District Court for the District of Columbia. 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (1970 ed., Supp. V). We have held that a redistricting plan is a “standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting” within the meaning of § 5. Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S. 526 (1973).

 We upheld the validity of the shifted burden of proof in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 335 (1966).

 “The Act suspends new voting regulations pending scrutiny by federal authorities to determine whether their use would violate the Fifteenth Amendment.” Id., at 334.

 The Court’s decisions relating to the relevance of purpose-and/ or-effect analysis in testing the constitutionality of legislative enactments are somewhat less than a seamless web. The possible theoretical approaches are three: (1) purpose alone is the test of unconstitutionality, and effect is irrelevant, or relevant only insofar as it sheds light on purpose; (2) effect alone is the test, and purpose is irrelevant; and (3) purpose or effect, either alone or in combination, is sufficient to show unconstitutionality. At various times in recent years the Court has seemed to adopt each of these approaches.
In the two Fifteenth Amendment redistricting cases, Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U. S. 52 (1964), and Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960), the Court suggested that legislative purpose alone is determinative, although language in both eases may be isolated that seems to approve some inquiry into effect insofar as it elucidates purpose. See 376 U. S., at 52; 364 U. S., at 341. See also 376 U. S., at 73-74 (Goldberg, J., dissenting). McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 453 (1961), an equal protection-First Amendment case, expressly states that effect is of relevance in imputing an improper purpose, but that legislation is invalidated only for having such a purpose. And City of Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S. 358, 378-379 (1975), suggests that bad purpose may invalidate a law under the Fifteenth Amendment even if there is no unconstitutional effect at all.
Completely contrary to these cases are those that hold that legislative purpose is wholly irrelevant to the constitutionality of legislation — indeed, that purpose may not be examined at all — and that a statute may be invalidated only if it has an unconstitutional effect. Palmer v. Thompson, 403 U. S. 217, 224-225 (1971), and United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 384-385 (1968), both vigorously *149attack purpose analysis and assert that Gomillion was decided as it was only because the statute in question had an unlawful effect.
Between these two positions are the cases that hold that either an impermissible purpose or an impermissible effect may alone be sufficient to invalidate a law. Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236, 243 (1968); Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 222 (1963). While there is no need here to synthesize these three positions and the various cases, if indeed a synthesis is possible, it should be clear that the language of purpose and effect selected by Congress for use in § 5 is not necessarily an expansion of the constitutional standard. Congress did no more than adopt the third of the tests that the Court itself has juggled over the years, See generally Ely, Legislative and Administrative Motivation in Constitutional Law, 79 Yale L. J. 1205 (1970).

 We have recognized that § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment gives Congress the power to expand the substantive reach of that Amendment. Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U. S. 641 (1966). Undoubtedly, § 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment, under which the Voting Rights Act was enacted, confers similar power upon Congress with respect to the substantive reach of the Fifteenth Amendment. Thus, to the extent, if any, that analysis for purpose or for effect is not independently required for resolution of the constitutional question, see n. 4, supra, Congress may be said to have expanded the constitutional inquiry in § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Insofar as redistricting legislation is concerned, however, I believe a showing of purpose or of effect is alone sufficient to demonstate unconstitutionality, and so I believe that in this context Congress enacted no more than the constitutional standard. Evaluation of the purpose of a legislative enactment is just too ambiguous a task to be the sole tool of constitutional analysis. See Palmer v. Thompson, supra, at 224-225; United States v. O’Brien, supra, at 384-385. Therefore, a demonstration of effect ordinarily should suffice. If, *150of course, purpose may conclusively be shown, it too should be sufficient to demonstrate a statute’s unconstitutionality.

 While the Court does quote language that suggests some of the other purposes that I see in the statute, ante, at 140, when it comes to giving substantive content to § 5, the Court relies solely on the purpose suggested in the text.
It may be that this single purpose looms so large to the Court because it thinks it would be counterproductive to bar enforcement of a proposed plan, even if discriminatory, that is at all less discriminatory than the pre-existing plan, which would otherwise remain frozen in effect. While this argument has superficial appeal, it is ultimately unrealistic because it will be a rare jurisdiction that can retain its pre-existing apportionment after the rejection of a modification by the Attorney General or District Court. Jurisdictions do not undertake redistricting without reason. In this case, for instance, the New Orleans City Charter requires redistricting every 10 years. If the plan before us now were disapproved, New Orleans would have to produce a new one or amend its charter. In other cases, redistricting will have been constitutionally compelled by our one-person, one-vote decisions. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964). The virtual necessity of prompt redistricting argues strongly in favor of rejecting “ameliorative” but still discriminatory redistricting plans. The jurisdictions will eventually have to return with a nondiscriminatory plan.

 Equally unsuccessful is the Court’s attempt to paint the “ameliorative” changes in this case as dramatic. Negroes constitute 45% of the population of New Orleans and 34.5% of the city’s registered *151voters. Under the 1961 redistricting plan currently in effect in New Orleans, that population is distributed as follows:

App. 621. Under Plan II, which is at issue in this lawsuit, the same population is distributed in this manner:

App. 624.
Thus the positive change that convinces the Court that no inquiry into possible “abridgment” is necessary is the change from a majority of registered voters in District B of 50.2% (which the Court fails to mention) to what the Court calls a “clear” majority (although the Court has no idea what percentage of registered Negro voters actually vote) in that district of 52.6%. The Court also emphasizes that now Negroes constitute a majority of the population in two districts, whereas under the existing plan they are a majority in only one district. This beneficial change is accomplished by the shift from a minority of 49.4% of the population in District E to a majority in that district of 50.6%.

 H. R. Rep. No. 91-397, pp. 6-7 (1969). See also H. R. Rep. No. 439, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 10-11 (1965); S. Rep. No. 162, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, pp. 8, 12 (1965); South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 315-316, 335.

 S. Rep. No. 94-295, p. 15 (1975). See also H. R. Rep. No. 439, supra, at 10-11. It is for this reason that the existing plan remains "frozen" in effect while the proposed plan is submitted for approval. Thus, any constitutional litigation may proceed without interruption, unless the new plan is itself found to be nondiscriminatory and is substituted. See H. R. Rep. No. 94H96, p. 58 (1975). Either way, the litigant obtains the relief he seeks — a nondiscriminatory apportionment.

 The pressure of having proposed plans judged by rigorous standards and the fear of litigation over new plans were thought to encourage covered jurisdictions to end all discrimination in voting. “The preclearanee procedure — and this is critical — serves psychologically to control the proliferation of discriminatory laws and practices because each change must first be federally reviewed. Thus section 5 serves to prevent discrimination before it starts.” 115 Cong. Rec. 38486 (1969) (remarks of Rep. McCulloch).
See also id., at 38517 (remarks of Rep. Anderson); U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, The Voting Rights Act: Ten Years After, pp. 30-31 (1975).
The Act’s limited term is proof that Congress intended to secure prompt, and not gradual, relief. Originally, the Act was intended to be in effect for only five years. While it has been twice extended, each extension was also for only a few years: five more years in 1970, and seven more years in 1975. Thus, it cannot be argued that the Act contemplated slow forward movement, which the Court’s construction sanctifies, rather than a quick remedial “fix.”

 While I read “abridge” in both § 5 and the Fifteenth Amendment as primarily involving an absolute assessment of dilution of Negro voting power from its potential, I do not hold that recognition of a relative change is absolutely irrelevant to this determination. For instance, it may often be useful to glean some indication . of purpose from a minority’s relative position under the existing and proposed plans. Moreover, there will be circumstances — annexations, for example — where dilution can fairly be measured only in comparison to the prior scheme. See City of Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S., at 378. Cf. Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960).

 Today the Court finds it simple to conclude that Plan II is “ameliorative,” but it will not always be so easy to determine whether a new plan increases or decreases Negro voting power relative to the prior plan. To the contrary, I believe the Court’s test will prove unduly difficult of application and excessively demanding of judicial energies.
For instance, the Court today finds that an increase in the size of the Negro majority in one district, with a concomitant increased likelihood of electing a delegate, conclusively shows that Plan II *154ís ameliorative. Will that always be so? Is it not as common for minorities to be gerrymandered into the same district as into separate ones? Is an increase in the size of an existing majority ameliorative or retrogressive? When the size of the majority increases in one district, Negro voting strength necessarily declines elsewhere. Is that decline retrogressive? Assuming that the shift from a 50.2% to a 52.6% majority in District B in this case is ameliorative, and is not outweighed by the simultaneous decrease in Negro voting strength in Districts A and C, when would an increase become retrogressive? As soon as the majority becomes "safe”? When the majority is achieved by dividing pre-existing concentrations of Negro voters?
Moreover, the Court implies, ante, at 139 n. 11, by its attempt to harmonize its holding today with City of Richmond v. United States, supra, that this preliminary inquiry into the nature of the change is the proper approach to all § 5 cases. The Court’s test will prove even more difficult of application outside the redistricting context. Some changes just do not lend themselves to comparison in positive or negative terms; others will always seem negative — or positive — no matter how good or bad the result. For instance, when a city goes from an appointed town manager to an elected council form of government, can the change ever be termed retrogressive, even if the new council is elected at large and Negroes are a minority? Or where a jurisdiction in which Negroes are a substantial minority switches from at-large to ward voting, can that change ever constitute a negative change, no matter how badly the wards are gerrymandered?
I realize, of course, that determining the ultimate question of “abridgment” may involve answering questions similar to those I have posed above and that those questions will be just as difficult to answer. My point, however, is exactly that the inquiry is a difficult one, and that there is no reason substantially to compound that complexity by posing an unnecessary and equally complex preliminary inquiry.

 As I understand it, the Court views the constitutional inquiry as part of the § 5 inquiry. See ante, at 141. Thus, the burden of proof on constitutional issues, as on all § 5 issues, is on the covered jurisdiction. Although the Court’s treatment of the point is *155ambiguous, I read its observation that “[t]he United States has made no claim” that Plan II is unconstitutional, ante, at 142 n. 14, as indicating only that it is for the United States to raise the issue of unconstitutionality in the § 5 proceeding, and not as suggesting that, once the issue is raised, the United States must prove the claim as well. Any other reading would frustrate still another legislative purpose. The Act freezes the existing plan and places the burden of proof on the covered jurisdiction to justify the proposed plan expressly in order “to shift the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims.” South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 328. See also H. R. Rep. No. 94-196, p. 58 (1975). I do not understand the Court, in bringing the constitutional issue in through the back door, to eliminate the primary procedural advantage to the United States of the § 5 proceeding.

 The Court’s treatment of the constitutional questions is all the more puzzling if it intends to confine its constitutional analysis to those seats brought before the District Court in the § 5 proceeding. In this case, the Court holds that it may avoid looking at the two at-large seats on the New Orleans City Council in deciding the § 5 claim, but see infra, at 158-159, and its exclusion of those seats appears to extend to its ultimate constitutional inquiry as well. Yet, it is obvious that an independent constitutional challenge to Plan II would also include a challenge to the at-large seats and that such a broadened attack would be considerably more difficult to reject than the question the Court evidently considers. The change in focus caused by an expanded challenge both accentuates the dilution of the Negro vote in New Orleans, see n. 19, infra, and necessitates recognition of the particularly dilutive effects of at-large dis-tricting schemes. See White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973). If the Court has ignored these factors in finding Plan II constitutional, it has engaged in no more than a time-consuming hypothetical adjudication, for its holding will surely not bar a future constitutional challenge to the entire scheme.

 Because I read § 5 as incorporating the standards of the Fifteenth Amendment, see nn. 4-5, supra, I read these cases as holding, implicitly, that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments mandate the same test for assessing the validity, on racial grounds, of legislative apportionments. Since a person whose right to vote is denied or abridged on account of race is likewise denied equal protection of the laws, borrowing from the developed corpus of Fourteenth Amendment law is entirely appropriate. Seeking another source for a § 5 test is particularly appropriate given the scarcity of Fifteenth Amendment case law. Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U. S. 52 (1964), and Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960), the only relevant Fifteenth Amendment cases, predate not only the Voting Rights Act, its incorporation of the language of the Fifteenth Amendment, and our cases construing that incorporation, but also all the Fourteenth Amendment developments discussed in the text. For these reasons, and because neither case states a general test, Wright and Gomillion are of no help at all in formulating a test for § 5 cases.

 The Court refers to the cited page, for the proposition that members of a minority group have no federal right “to be represented in legislative bodies in proportion to their number in the general population.” Ante, at 136-137, n. 8. Whitcomb v. Chavis stands for no such proposition. The language the Court refers to is substantively identical to that quoted in the text and supports only the notion that there is no right to proportional representation absent evidence of denial of access to the political process.

 The cases make clear that the inquiry is not meant to be limited to the ability of the minority group to participate in the voting plan under attack, but also includes sweeping analysis of the minority group's past and present treatment by the jurisdiction before the court. White v. Regester, 412 U. S., at 766-767; Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S., at 149-153.

 For instance, a city with a 20% Negro population and a five-member council elected in wards might be able to justify the placement of only 20% minority population in each district, despite a history of denial of access to the political process, by showing that the minority population was perfectly distributed throughout the municipality so that the creation of a Negro-majority ward was an impossibility. On the other hand, again assuming a history of denial of access to the political process, such a plan could not survive attack if the 20% Negro population of each ward were achieved by dividing five ways a concentrated bloc of Negro voters located in the center of the city.

 This effect is clear in this case, where Negroes constitute 34.5% of the New Orleans electorate. Out of seven seats, Negroes should reasonably expect to control at least two. In considering only five seats, the Court suggests — properly, given its self-imposed limitation — that Negroes should have an expectancy of only one seat. Ante, at 137 n. 8. If only two of the five districts were before us, and assuming a 34.5% minority share of the voting population in those districts, the Court could properly conclude that Negroes could lay claim to neither of the two seats. Thus, under the Court’s approach, the smaller the number of seats that the city may present for consideration, the grosser the discrimination that may be numerically tolerated.

 The tendency to racial bloc voting in New Orleans is a finding of fact by the District Court that is not challenged here. Such voting was encouraged until 1964 by a Louisiana statute, declared unconstitutional in Anderson v. Martin, 375 U. S. 399 (1964), that required the race of each candidate to be printed on the ballots used in all elections within the State.

 Appellants challenge the propriety of looking at this evidence in assessing the effect of Plan II, not its accuracy.

 The majority-vote requirement is a rule that the winner of an election must have a majority of the vote. Thus, in a race involving three or more candidates, a plurality of voters cannot elect their candidate. If no candidate wins a majority, there is a run-off election.
The “anti-single-shot” rule is a requirement that in a multi-member district the voter must vote for as many candidates as there are seats to be filled. Thus, although the voter may be interested in only one of the candidates, he must vote for others as well.

 The city asserts that its seventh goal is to retain ‘'historic and traditional councilmanic district boundaries” so as to “preserve continuity within the electorate.” Brief for Appellants 28-29. In fact, the record is conclusive that the goal was purely to keep incumbents apart. 1 App. 206-207; 2 App. 344, 557.

 While the Court today finds that the District Court erred in finding a discriminatory effect, it does not address the issue not reached by the District Court: whether Plan II was drafted with a discriminatory purpose. Of course, this question remains on remand. See City of Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S., at 378-379.