Cite as: 522 U. S. 34 (1997)
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
under the rule of deference to municipal law. This rule of deference would not have been interpreted to effect a change in the law, and so it did not put the Attorney General on notice of Rome's shift to majority voting. Because municipal law was dispositive under the first sentence of the 1968 code section, City of Rome said nothing about the state-law default rule of majority voting in the second sentence.
The instant case, in contrast, is controlled by the default rule of state law set forth in the second sentence. Monroe's pre-1966 charter, unlike Rome's, did not require plurality voting and so could not trigger the rule of deference to municipal law in the first sentence. Thus Monroe, unlike Rome, does not need to breathe life into its invalid 1966 charter to circumvent the rule of deference. After one disregards Monroe's invalid 1966 and 1971 charters, the state-law default rule mandates majority voting.
Cases, such as this one, arising under the default rule satisfy all of the preclearance requirements in City of Rome. The Government does not dispute that Georgia submitted the state-law default rule to the Attorney General in an "un-ambiguous and recordable manner." The submission, furthermore, gave the Attorney General "an adequate opportunity to determine the purpose of the [default-rule] electoral changes and whether they will adversely affect minority voting." In consequence, by preclearing the 1968 code the Attorney General approved the state-law default rule. The controlling default rule having been precleared, Monroe may conduct elections under its auspices.
Because the 1968 code disposes of the case on this undisputed factual record, the Court need not address appellants' other contentions. The judgment of the District Court is
Reversed.
Justice Scalia, concurring in the judgment. Although I agree with the result reached by the Court, my reasoning is somewhat different. Like Justice Breyer, I
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