258
Opinion of the Court
seek to clarify an earlier enacted general term" and "do not depend for their effectiveness upon clarification, or a change in the meaning of an earlier statute," are "beside the point" in reading the first enactment. Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224, 237 (1998). Congress may have spoken with explicit clarity when it passed § 1712, but we can say no more than that.
The second argument supposedly undermining the meaning naturally suggested by association was stressed by the Court of Appeals, which thought that reading "any election" to mean gubernatorial election would render the phrase a nullity and thus offend the rule against attributing redundancy to Congress, see Kungys v. United States, 485 U. S. 759, 778 (1988). The fact is that this argument has some force, but not enough. There is no question that the statute would be read as we read it even if the phrase were missing. But as one rule of construction among many, albeit an important one, the rule against redundancy does not necessarily have the strength to turn a tide of good cause to come out the other way. Besides, there is even a reason for thinking the phrase in question has some clarifying value. Section 1422 provides specifically for an initial gubernatorial election in 1970, and generally for successive elections every four years thereafter. "[A]ny election," therefore, may be read to make it clear that the runoff requirement applies equally to the initial election and to those periodically scheduled in the future. That may not be very heavy work for the phrase to perform, but a job is a job, and enough to bar the rule against redundancy from disqualifying an otherwise sensible reading.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
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