Cite as: 521 U. S. 74 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
comparison shall be with the last legally enforceable practice or procedure used by the jurisdiction." 28 CFR § 51.54(b)(1) (1996).
See also Holder v. Hall, 512 U. S. 874, 883-884 (1994) ("Under § 5, then, the proposed voting practice is measured against the existing voting practice . . . . The baseline for comparison is present by definition; it is the existing status. . . . [T]here is little difficulty in discerning the two voting practices to compare to determine whether retrogression would occur"); Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board, 520 U. S. 471, 478 (1997). There are sound reasons for requiring benchmarks to be plans that have been in effect; otherwise a myriad of benchmarks would be proposed in every case, with attendant confusion. This rule is all the more appropriate when one considers the attempt to use as a benchmark the State's supposed policy of creating two majority-black districts. And the Justice Department's proposed benchmark—the 1992 plan shorn of its constitutional defects—was also never in effect. Nor can the 1992 plan, constitutional defects and all, be the benchmark. Section 5 cannot be used to freeze in place the very aspects of a plan found unconstitutional.
The appropriate benchmark is, in fact, what the District Court concluded it would be: the 1982 plan, in effect for a decade. 922 F. Supp., at 1569, n. 20. Appellants have not shown that black voters in any particular district suffered a retrogression in their voting strength under the court plan measured against the 1982 plan. Absent such proof, there is no violation of § 5. We reject appellants' assertion that, even using the 1982 plan as a benchmark, the court's plan is retrogressive. They claim that under the 1982 plan 1 of the 10 districts (10%) was majority black, while under the District Court's plan 1 of 11 districts (9%) is majority black, and therefore blacks do not have the same electoral opportunities under the District Court's plan. Under that logic, each time a State with a majority-minority district was allowed to add
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