340
Opinion of the Court
that it could not have done so because it was unaware of the existence of any black voters against whom it could have intended to discriminate:
"[The city's] argument is based on the incorrect assumption that an impermissible purpose under § 5 can relate only to present circumstances. Section 5 looks not only to the present effects of changes, but to their future effects as well . . . . Likewise, an impermissible purpose under § 5 may relate to anticipated as well as present circumstances.
"It is quite plausible to see [the annexation] as motivated, in part, by the impermissible purpose of minimizing future black voting strength. . . . This is just as impermissible a purpose as the dilution of present black voting strength." Id., at 471-472 (citations and footnotes omitted).
Appellants assert that we must have viewed the city's purpose as discriminatory but nonretrogressive because, as the city noted in contending that it lacked even a discriminatory purpose, the city could not have been acting to worsen the voting strength of any present black residents, since there were no black voters at the time. However, as the above quoted passage suggests, we did not hold that the purpose prong of § 5 extends beyond retrogression, but rather held that a jurisdiction with no minority voters can have a retrogressive purpose, at the present time, by intending to worsen the voting strength of future minority voters. Put another way, our holding in Pleasant Grove had nothing to do with the question whether, to justify the denial of preclearance on the basis of the purpose prong, the purpose must be retrogressive; instead, it involved the question whether the purpose must be to achieve retrogression at once or could include, in the case of a jurisdiction with no present minority voters, retrogression with regard to operation of the proposed plan (as compared with
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