Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 48 (1994)

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Cite as: 512 U. S. 874 (1994)

Thomas, J., concurring in judgment

1982, the amended section did retain the same language that had appeared in the original Act regulating "standard[s], practice[s], or procedure[s]." 21 But it was hardly well settled in 1982 that Allen's broad reading of the terms "standard, practice, or procedure" in § 5 would set the scope of § 2 as a provision reaching claims of vote dilution.

On the contrary, in 1980 in Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, a plurality of the Court construed § 2 in a manner flatly inconsistent with the understanding that those terms were meant to reach dilutive practices. Emphasizing that the section tracked the language of the Fifteenth Amendment by prohibiting the use of practices that might "deny or abridge the right . . . to vote," the Bolden plurality determined that § 2 was "intended to have an effect no different from that of the Fifteenth Amendment itself." Id., at 61. In the plurality's view, however, the Fifteenth Amendment did not extend to reach dilution claims; its protections were satisfied as long as members of racial minorities could " 'register and vote without hindrance.' " Id., at 65. Bolden remained the last word from this Court interpreting § 2 at the time the section was amended in 1982. Cf. Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 619, n. 6 (1982). Thus, the reenactment in the amended section of the same language covering any "standard, practice, or procedure" and the retention of virtually identical language protecting against the "denial or abridgement of the right . . . to vote" can hardly be understood as an endorsement of a broad reading of the section as a provision reaching claims of vote dilution.22

21 The original § 2 provided that no "standard, practice, or procedure" should be imposed or applied "to deny or abridge the right . . . to vote." Pub. L. 89-110, § 2, 79 Stat. 437.

22 If anything, applying the Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U. S. 575 (1978), principle of construction might suggest that, by reenacting virtually the same language derived from the Fifteenth Amendment to define the basic interest protected by the Act, Congress intended to preserve the limitation that the Bolden plurality found implicit in that language. It is clear from the terms of the amendments passed in 1982 that where Congress sought

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