Cite as: 520 U. S. 471 (1997)
Opinion of Breyer, J.
able to assume that the Constitution would forbid the use of such a plan. See Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 617 (1982) (Fourteenth Amendment covers vote dilution claims); Mobile, 446 U. S., at 66 (plurality opinion) (same). And compare id., at 62-63 (intentional vote dilution may be illegal under the Fifteenth Amendment) and Gomillion v. Light-foot, 364 U. S. 339, 346 (1960) (Fifteenth Amendment covers municipal boundaries drawn to exclude blacks), with Mobile, supra, at 84, n. 3 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment) (Mobile plurality said that Fifteenth Amendment does not reach vote dilution); Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U. S. 146, 159 (1993) ("This Court has not decided whether the Fifteenth Amendment applies to vote-dilution claims . . ."); Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630, 645 (1993) (endorsing the Gomillion concurrence's Fourteenth Amendment approach); and Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130, 142, n. 14 (1976). Then, to read § 5's "purpose" language to require approval of Plan A, even though the jurisdiction cannot provide a neutral explanation for its choice, would be both to read § 5 contrary to its plain language and also to believe that Congress would have wanted a § 5 court (or the Attorney General) to approve an unconstitutional plan adopted with an unconstitutional purpose.
In light of this example, it is not surprising that this Court has previously indicated that the purpose part of § 5 prohibits a plan adopted with the purpose of unconstitutionally diluting minority voting strength, whether or not the plan is retrogressive in its effect. In Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899 (1996), for example, the Court doubted "that a showing of discriminatory effect under § 2, alone, could support a claim of discriminatory purpose under § 5." Id., at 914, n. 6 (emphasis added). The word "alone" suggests that the evidence of a discriminatory effect there at issue—evidence of dilution—could be relevant to a discriminatory purpose claim. And if so, the more natural understanding of § 5 is that an unlawful purpose includes more than simply a purpose to
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