200
Opinion of Stevens, J.
Developments in the Law—Elections, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 1111, 1159-1163 (1975). By the logic of Smith, therefore, the Party acted under authority of the Commonwealth.17
It is true that the example set forth in the Attorney General's regulation describes changes in the conduct of primary elections. That example, however, does not purport to define the outer limits of the coverage of § 5. Moreover, both in its brief amicus curiae supporting appellants in this case and in its prior implementation of the regulation, the Department of Justice has interpreted it as applying to changes affecting voting at a party convention.18 We are satisfied
17 Justice Thomas argues that our decision in Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649 (1944), depended on the State's regulation of the Party's activities. Post, at 268. While it is true that political parties in Smith were subject to extensive regulation, nothing in our decision turned on that factor. Only nine years before Smith, the Court had surveyed the same statutory regime in Grovey v. Townsend, 295 U. S. 45, 50 (1935), and concluded that primary elections were private voluntary activity. What changed was not the extent of state regulation, but the Court's understanding, based on its intervening decision in United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299 (1941), that primaries were "a part of the machinery for choosing officials." 321 U. S., at 664. On that basis, the Court overruled Grovey, even though the objectionable practice there of excluding blacks from membership in the party was undertaken by a private, unregulated entity.
The irrelevance of state regulation was confirmed in two cases decided after Smith. Subsequent to Smith, South Carolina repealed all of its laws regulating political primaries. The Democratic primary was thereafter conducted under rules prescribed by the Democratic Party alone, which included rules restricting the primary to white persons. The Fourth Circuit struck down those practices, reasoning that "[s]tate law relating to the general election gives effect to what is done in the primary and makes it just as much a part of the election machinery of the state by which the people choose their officers as if it were regulated by law, as formerly." Rice v. Elmore, 165 F. 2d 387, 390-391 (1947) (emphasis added); accord, Baskin v. Brown, 174 F. 2d 391 (1949). The principal opinion in Terry v. Adams, 345 U. S. 461 (1953), declared that these cases were "in accord with the commands of the Fifteenth Amendment and the laws passed pursuant to it." Id., at 466 (opinion of Black, J.).
18 See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 11-13. Since 1981, when the regulation was promulgated, there have been nearly 2,000 pre-clearance submissions involving more than 16,000 proposed changes by
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