Cite as: 519 U. S. 9 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
not contravene the California Constitution, and the State has vigorously opposed each of the parties' proposals as violative of state law.
These complications do not, however, change the basic nature of the § 5 preclearance process. Congress designed the preclearance procedure "to forestall the danger that local decisions to modify voting practices will impair minority access to the electoral process." McDaniel, 452 U. S., at 149 (footnote omitted). Congress chose to accomplish this purpose by giving exclusive authority to pass on the discriminatory effect or purpose of an election change to the Attorney General and to the District Court for the District of Columbia. As we explained in McDaniel, "[b]ecause a large number of voting changes must necessarily undergo the preclearance process, centralized review enhances the likelihood that recurring problems will be resolved in a consistent and expeditious way." Id., at 151 (footnote omitted). Once a covered jurisdiction has complied with these preclearance requirements, § 5 provides no further remedy. Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S., at 549-550.
This congressional choice in favor of specialized review necessarily constrains the role of the three-judge district court. On a complaint alleging failure to preclear election changes under § 5, that court lacks authority to consider the discriminatory purpose or nature of the changes. Perkins v. Matthews, supra, at 385 ("What is foreclosed to such district court is what Congress expressly reserved for consideration by the District Court for the District of Columbia or the Attorney General—the determination whether a covered change does or does not have the purpose or effect 'of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color' "). The three-judge district court may determine only whether § 5 covers a contested change, whether § 5's approval requirements were satisfied, and if the requirements were not satisfied, what temporary remedy, if any, is appropriate. See City of Lockhart v. United States, 460 U. S. 125,
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