480
Opinion of the Court
Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30, 50-51 (1986); Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 40 (1993). The plaintiff must also demonstrate that the totality of the circumstances supports a finding that the voting scheme is dilutive. Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U. S. 997, 1011 (1994); see Gingles, supra, at 44-45 (listing factors to be considered by a court in assessing the totality of the circumstances). Because the very concept of vote dilution implies—and, indeed, necessitates—the existence of an "undiluted" practice against which the fact of dilution may be measured, a § 2 plaintiff must also postulate a reasonable alternative voting practice to serve as the benchmark "undiluted" voting practice. Holder v. Hall, 512 U. S., at 881 (plurality opinion); id., at 950-951 (Blackmun, J., dissenting).
Appellants contend that preclearance must be denied
under § 5 whenever a covered jurisdiction's redistricting plan violates § 2. The upshot of this position is to shift the focus of § 5 from nonretrogression to vote dilution, and to change the § 5 benchmark from a jurisdiction's existing plan to a hypothetical, undiluted plan.
But § 5, we have held, is designed to combat only those effects that are retrogressive. See supra, at 477-479. To adopt appellants' position, we would have to call into question more than 20 years of precedent interpreting § 5. See, e. g., Beer, supra; City of Lockhart, supra. This we decline to do. Section 5 already imposes upon a covered jurisdiction the difficult burden of proving the absence of discriminatory purpose and effect. See, e. g., Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S. 206, 219 (1960) ("[A]s a practical matter it is never easy to prove a negative"). To require a jurisdiction to litigate whether its proposed redistricting plan also has a dilutive "result" before it can implement that plan—even if the Attorney General bears the burden of proving that "result"—is to increase further the serious federalism costs already implicated by § 5. See Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900, 926 (1995) (noting the "federalism costs exacted by § 5 preclearance").
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