Cite as: 512 U. S. 874 (1994)
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
"practices" that we have already decided are subject to challenge under the Act.
If we return to the Act to reexamine the terms setting out the actions regulated by § 2, a careful reading of the statutory text will reveal a good deal more about the limitations on the scope of the section than suggested above. The terms "standard, practice, or procedure" appear to have been included in § 2 as a sort of catchall provision. They seem phrased with an eye to eliminating the possibility of evasion.19 Nevertheless, they are catchall terms that round out a list, and a sensible and long-established maxim of construction limits the way we should understand such general words appended to an enumeration of more specific items. The principle of ejusdem generis suggests that such general terms should be understood to refer to items belonging to the same class that is defined by the more specific terms in the list. See, e. g., Cleveland v. United States, 329 U. S. 14, 18 (1946).
Here, the specific items described in § 2(a) ("voting qualification[s]" and "prerequisite[s] to voting") indicate that Congress was concerned in this section with any procedure, however it might be denominated, that regulates citizens' access to the ballot—that is, any procedure that might erect a barrier to prevent the potential voter from casting his vote. In describing the laws that would be subject to § 2, Congress focused attention upon provisions regulating the interaction between the individual voter and the voting process—on hurdles the citizen might have to cross in the form of "prerequisites" or "qualifications." The general terms in the section are most naturally understood, therefore, to refer to
19 Cf. South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U. S. 301, 335 (1966) (noting that "Congress knew that some of the States . . . had resorted to the extraordinary stratagem of contriving new rules of various kinds for the sole purpose of perpetuating voting discrimination in the face of adverse federal court decrees" and that "Congress had reason to suppose that these States might try similar maneuvers in the future").
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