Cite as: 517 U. S. 186 (1996)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
terms and with the gloss placed on it in United States v. Sheffield Bd. of Comm'rs, 435 U. S. 110 (1978), does not reach the Republican Party of Virginia's actions. Post, at 254-263. Furthermore, Congress demonstrated its ability to distinguish between the State and other actors in the text of the Act itself. Section 11 of the Act makes it unlawful for any "person acting under color of law" to "fail or refuse to permit any person to vote who is entitled to vote under" specified provisions of the Act, or to "willfully fail or refuse to tabulate, count, and report such person's vote," 42 U. S. C. § 1973i(a), and also provides that "[n]o person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce . . . any person for voting or attempting to vote," § 1973i(b).
In the context of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983 (1988 ed.), which uses similar language to describe the class of individuals subject to its reach ("[e]very person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State"), we have said " 'under color' of law has consistently been treated as the same thing as the 'state action' required under the Fourteenth Amendment." United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 794, n. 7 (1966). See also Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., supra, at 929; Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U. S. 830, 838 (1982); West v. Atkins, 487 U. S. 42, 49 (1988); National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Tarkanian, supra, at 182, n. 4; Hafer v. Melo, 502 U. S. 21, 28 (1991). There is no apparent reason why the "under color of law" requirement of § 11 should not also be considered coterminous with the state-action requirement of the Amendment that statute enforces, and we should infer from Congress' employment of that requirement an intent to distinguish between the State and those other actors to whom governmental status must be imputed in some instances, cf. Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561, 568 (1995) (elementary canon of statutory construction to give a term a "consistent meaning throughout the
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