Cite as: 520 U. S. 471 (1997)
Thomas, J., concurring
vote dilution jurisprudence by a court inclined to find it so. We have held that a reapportionment plan that "enhances the position of racial minorities" by increasing the number of majority-minority districts does not "have the 'effect' of diluting or abridging the right to vote on account of race within the meaning of § 5." Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 141 (1976). But in so holding we studiously avoided addressing one of the necessary consequences of increasing majority-minority districts: Such action necessarily decreases the level of minority influence in surrounding districts, and to that extent "dilutes" the vote of minority voters in those other districts, and perhaps dilutes the influence of the minority group as a whole. See, e. g., Hays v. Louisiana, 936 F. Supp. 360, 364, n. 17 (WD La. 1996) (three-judge court) (noting that plaintiffs' expert "argues convincingly that our plan, with its one black majority and three influence districts, empowers more black voters statewide than does" a plan with two black-majority districts and five "bleached" districts in which minority influence was reduced in order to create the second black-majority district); cf. Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U. S. 997, 1007 (1994) (noting that dilution can occur by "fragmenting the minority voters among several districts . . . or by packing them into one or a small number of districts to minimize their influence in the districts next door").
Under our vote dilution jurisprudence, therefore, a court could strike down any reapportionment plan, either because it did not include enough majority-minority districts or because it did (and thereby diluted the minority vote in the remaining districts). A court could presumably even strike down a new reapportionment plan that did not significantly alter the status quo at all, on the theory that such a plan did not measure up to some hypothetical ideal. With such an indeterminate "rule," § 5 ceases to be primarily a prophylactic tool in the important war against discrimination in voting, and instead becomes the means whereby the Federal Government, and particularly the Department of Justice, usurps
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