920
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
the language a broader construction in the statute than we have given it in the Constitution. The Court has never decided, however, whether the Fifteenth Amendment should be understood to protect against vote "dilution." See Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S. 146, 159 (1993). See also Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 142, n. 14 (1976) (noting that there is no decision of this Court holding a legislative apportionment plan violative of the Fifteenth Amendment).20
While the terms of § 2(a) thus indicate that the section focuses only on securing access to the ballot, it might be argued that reenactment of § 2 in 1982 should be understood as an endorsement of the interpretation contained in cases such as Allen that the terms "standard, practice, or procedure" were meant to reach potentially dilutive practices. See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U. S. 575, 580-581 (1978). It is true that we generally will assume that reenactment of specific statutory language is intended to include a "settled judicial interpretation" of that language. Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U. S. 552, 567 (1988). And while § 2 was amended in
20 Indeed, in Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980), a plurality of the Court concluded that the Fifteenth Amendment did not address concerns of dilution at all. See id., at 65. Cf. id., at 84, n. 3 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment) (noting that the plurality had concluded that the Fifteenth Amendment "applies only to practices that directly affect access to the ballot and hence is totally inapplicable to the case at bar").
Contrary to Justice Stevens' suggestions, post, at 958, 962, Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960), does not indicate that the Fifteenth Amendment, in protecting the right to vote, incorporates a concern for anything beyond securing access to the ballot. The Gomillion plaintiffs' claims centered precisely on access: Their complaint was not that the weight of their votes had been diminished in some way, but that the boundaries of a city had been drawn to prevent blacks from voting in municipal elections altogether. Id., at 341. Gomillion thus "maintains the distinction between an attempt to exclude Negroes totally from the relevant constituency, and a statute that permits Negroes to vote but which uses the gerrymander to contain the impact of Negro suffrage." Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 589 (1969) (Harlan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Page: Index Previous 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007