Cite as: 517 U. S. 186 (1996)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
as a "State or political subdivision" even though it is clearly neither "one of the 50 constituent States of the Union," post, at 254, nor "a political subdivision" of any such State in a literal sense or as that term is defined in the statute itself.33
Indeed, a major political party has far more power over the electoral process than a school board, which we conceded has "no nominal electoral functions." Dougherty, 439 U. S., at 44.
Besides the fact that it contravenes our precedents, this argument fails at the purely textual level. The Voting Rights Act uses the same word as the Fifteenth Amendment—"State"—to define the authorities bound to honor the right to vote. Long before Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, we had repeatedly held that the word "State" in the Fifteenth Amendment encompassed political parties. See Smith v. Allwright; Terry v. Adams. How one can simultaneously concede that "State" reaches political parties under the Fifteenth Amendment, yet argue that it "plainly" excludes all such parties in § 5, is beyond our understanding. Imposing different constructions on the same word is especially perverse in light of the fact that the Act—as it states on its face—was passed to enforce that very Amendment. See United States v. CIO, 335 U. S. 106, 112 (1948) ("There is no better key to a difficult problem of statutory construction than the law from which the challenged statute emerged"). Speculations about language that might have more clearly reached political parties are beside the point. It would be a mischievous and unwise rule that Congress cannot rely on our construction of constitutional language when it seeks to exercise its enforcement power pursuant to the same provisions.34
33 The statute defines "political subdivision" as a unit of government that registers voters. 42 U. S. C. § 1973l(c)(2) (1988 ed.).
34 Justice Kennedy and Justice Thomas nevertheless argue that Congress should have borrowed language from 42 U. S. C. § 1983 if it had intended § 5 to cover political parties. To bolster the point, they cite the "Prohibited acts" provision of the Act, § 11(a), which forbids any "per-
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