476
Opinion of the Court
provides that the Attorney General shall withhold pre-clearance where "necessary to prevent a clear violation of amended Section 2 [42 U. S. C. § 1973]," the Attorney General concluded that the Board's redistricting plan warranted a denial of preclearance under § 5. App. to Juris. Statement 157a. The Attorney General declined to reconsider the decision. Ibid.
The Board then filed this action seeking preclearance under § 5 in the District Court for the District of Columbia. Appellant Price and others intervened as defendants. The three-judge panel granted the Board's request for preclearance, over the dissent of one judge. 907 F. Supp. 434, 437 (1995). The District Court squarely rejected the appellants' contention that a voting change's alleged failure to satisfy § 2 constituted an independent reason to deny preclearance under § 5: "We hold, as has every court that has considered the question, that a political subdivision that does not violate either the 'effect' or the 'purpose' prong of section 5 cannot be denied preclearance because of an alleged section 2 violation." Id., at 440-441. Given this holding, the District Court quite properly expressed no opinion on whether the Jury plan in fact violated § 2, and its refusal to reach out and decide the issue in dicta does not require us, as Justice Stevens insists, to "assume that the record discloses a 'clear violation' of § 2." See post, at 499 (opinion dissenting in part and concurring in part). That issue has yet to be decided by any court. The District Court did, however, reject appellants' related argument that a court "must still consider evidence of a section 2 violation as evidence of discriminatory purpose under section 5." Id., at 445. We noted probable jurisdiction on June 3, 1996. 517 U. S. 1232.
II
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Act), 42 U. S. C. § 1973 et seq., was enacted by Congress in 1964 to "attac[k] the blight of voting discrimination" across the Nation. S. Rep. No. 97-
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