18
Opinion of the Court
District Court recognized that neither appellants nor the County thought feasible a return to the election scheme in effect on November 1, 1968. Instead, it decided to adopt one of the plans the County and appellants previously had proposed. Under this scheme, the County was divided into four election districts. Voters in three of the districts, in which Hispanics constituted a majority, would each elect one judge. Voters in the fourth district would elect the other seven judges. Judges elected under the plan would serve for 18-month terms, until January 1997. All 10 judges would serve on the countywide municipal court. The District Court acknowledged that the interim plan was inconsistent with state law, but reasoned that the intrusion on state interests was minimal. The County submitted the interim plan to the Attorney General for preclearance, and it was precleared on March 6, 1995. In a special election conducted on June 6, 1995, seven judges were elected. (Apparently, terms of three of the judges holding seats in the seven-member election district had not expired by June 1995.)
Shortly after the June 1995 special election, this Court issued its decision in Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900 (1995), which prompted the three-judge District Court to reconsider the soundness of its interim election plan. Miller, ruled the District Court, cast "substantial doubt" on the constitutionality of its previous order, "as that plan used race as a significant factor in dividing the County into election areas." App. 167. Without ruling that the interim plan was in fact unconstitutional, the District Court decided to change course. It denied the County's request to extend the terms of judges elected in the 1995 special election, concerned that such an extension would be "inappropriate" in light of the possible constitutional infirmity of the interim plan. A return to the judicial election system in existence before the adoption of the consolidation ordinances was not "legal, feasible or desired." Ibid. In the District Court's
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