336
Opinion of the Court
sole consequence of failing to obtain preclearance is continuation of the status quo. To deny preclearance to a plan that is not retrogressive—no matter how unconstitutional it may be—would risk leaving in effect a status quo that is even worse. For example, in the case of a voting change with a discriminatory but nonretrogressive purpose and a discriminatory but ameliorative effect, the result of denying preclearance would be to preserve a status quo with more discriminatory effect than the proposed change.
In sum, by suggesting that § 5 extends to discriminatory but nonretrogressive vote-dilutive purposes, appellants ask us to do what we declined to do in Bossier Parish I: to blur the distinction between § 2 and § 5 by "shift[ing] the focus of § 5 from nonretrogression to vote dilution, and . . . chang[ing] the § 5 benchmark from a jurisdiction's existing plan to a hypothetical, undiluted plan." 520 U. S., at 480. Such a reading would also exacerbate the "substantial" federalism costs that the preclearance procedure already exacts, Lopez v. Monterey County, 525 U. S. 266, 282 (1999), perhaps to the extent of raising concerns about § 5's constitutionality, see Miller, supra, at 926-927. Most importantly, however, in light of our holding in Beer, appellants' reading finds no support in the language of § 5.5
Rights Act even had the practice of racial vote dilution in mind. As Justice Souter acknowledges, this Court did not address the concept until 1969, see post, at 364, n. 13, and the legislative history of the 1969 extension of the Act, quoted by Justice Souter, see post, at 364-365, refers to at-large elections and consolidation of counties as "new, unlawful ways to diminish the Negroes' franchise" developed since passage of the Act. H. R. Rep. No. 91-397, pp. 6-7 (1969).
5 Justice Souter asserts that "[t]he Justice Department's longstanding practice of refusing to preclear changes that it determined to have an unconstitutionally discriminatory purpose, both before and after Beer," is entitled to deference. Post, at 368 (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part); accord, post, at 373 (Stevens, J., dissenting). But of course before Beer the Justice Department took the position that even the effects prong was not limited, in redistricting cases, to retrogression. Indeed, that position had been the basis for its denial of preclearance in
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