488
Opinion of the Court
out more, suffice to establish that the jurisdiction acted with a discriminatory purpose. Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899, 914, n. 6 (1996) ("[W]e doubt that a showing of discriminatory effect under § 2, alone, could support a claim of discriminatory purpose under § 5"). This is true whether the jurisdiction chose the more dilutive plan because it better comported with its traditional districting principles, see Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S., at 922 (rejecting argument that a jurisdiction's failure to adopt the plan with the greatest possible number of majority black districts establishes that it acted with a discriminatory purpose); Shaw, supra, at 912-913 (same), or if it chose the plan for no reason at all. Indeed, if a plan's dilutive impact were dispositive, we would effectively incorporate § 2 into § 5, which is a result we find unsatisfactory no matter how it is packaged. See Part II, supra.
As our discussion illustrates, assessing a jurisdiction's motivation in enacting voting changes is a complex task requiring a "sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence as may be available." Arlington Heights, 429 U. S., at 266. In conducting this inquiry, courts should look to our decision in Arlington Heights for guidance. There, we set forth a framework for analyzing "whether invidious discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor" in a government body's decisionmaking. Ibid. In addition to serving as the framework for examining discriminatory purpose in cases brought under the Equal Protection Clause for over two decades, see, e. g., Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630, 644 (1993) (citing Arlington Heights standard in context of Equal Protection Clause challenge to racial gerrymander of districts); Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 618 (1982) (evaluating vote dilution claim under Equal Protection Clause using Arlington Heights test); Mobile, 446 U. S., at 70-74 (same), the Arlington Heights framework has also been used, at least in part, to evaluate purpose in our previous § 5 cases. See Pleasant Grove v. United States, 479 U. S. 462, 469-470 (1987) (considering city's history in rejecting annexation of
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