286
Thomas, J., dissenting
Amendment issues. Ironically, the Court generates these difficulties by contorting, rather than giving the most natural meaning to, the text of § 5.
II
I also disagree with the Court that § 10 of the Voting Rights Act contains an implicit cause of action for private suits against States and localities that impose poll taxes upon voters. Section 10 states:
"[T]he Attorney General is authorized and directed to institute forthwith in the name of the United States such actions, including actions against States or political subdivisions, for declaratory judgment or injunctive relief against the enforcement of any requirement of the payment of a poll tax as a precondition to voting, or substitute therefor enacted after November 1, 1964, as will be necessary to implement the declaration of subsection (a) of this section and the purposes of this section." 42 U. S. C. § 1973h(b).
By its very terms, § 10 authorizes a single person to sue for relief from poll taxes: the Attorney General. The inescapable inference from this express grant of litigating authority to the Attorney General is that no other person may bring an action under § 10. Though Justice Stevens contends that implication of a private cause of action is crucial to the enforcement of voting rights, ante, at 231, § 10 itself indicates otherwise. Suits instituted by the Attorney General were evidently all that Congress thought "necessary to implement . . . the purposes of this section." Ibid. Section 10 explicitly entrusts to the Attorney General, and to the Attorney General alone, the duty to seek relief from poll taxes under the Act.
Although Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544 (1969), held that § 5 of the Voting Rights Act contains a private right of action, Allen does not require the same result under § 10. Section 5 affirmatively proclaims that " 'no per-
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