Cite as: 512 U. S. 874 (1994)
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
mechanically to prohibit overruling our earlier decisions determining the meaning of statutes." Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 695 (1978). Stare decisis should not bind the Court to an interpretation of the Voting Rights Act that was based on a flawed method of statutory construction from its inception and that in every day of its continued existence involves the Federal Judiciary in attempts to obscure the conflict between our cases and the explicit commands of the Act. The Court has noted in the past that stare decisis " 'is a principle of policy,' " Payne, 501 U. S., at 828 (quoting Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U. S. 106, 119 (1940)), and it " 'is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than it be settled right.' " 501 U. S., at 827 (quoting Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, 406 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)). I cannot subscribe to the view that in our decisions under the Voting Rights Act it is more important that we have a settled rule than that we have the right rule. When, under our direction, federal courts are engaged in methodically carving the country into racially designated electoral districts, it is imperative that we stop to reconsider whether the course we have charted for the Nation is the one set by the people through their representatives in Congress. I believe it is not.
I cannot adhere to the construction of § 2 embodied in our decision in Thornburg v. Gingles. I reject the assumption implicit in that case that the terms "standard, practice, or procedure" in § 2(a) of the Voting Rights Act can be construed to cover potentially dilutive electoral mechanisms. Understood in context, those terms extend the Act's prohibitions only to state enactments that regulate citizens' access to the ballot or the processes for counting a ballot. The terms do not include a State's or political subdivision's choice of one districting scheme over another. The terms certainly do not include, as respondents would argue, the size of a local governing authority.
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