Cite as: 523 U. S. 296 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
quir[es] us to evaluate both the fitness of the issues for judicial decision and the hardship to the parties of withholding court consideration." Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 149 (1967). As to fitness of the issues: Texas asks us to hold that under no circumstances can the imposition of these sanctions constitute a change affecting voting. We do not have sufficient confidence in our powers of imagination to affirm such a negative. The operation of the statute is better grasped when viewed in light of a particular application. Here, as is often true, "[d]etermination of the scope . . . of legislation in advance of its immediate adverse effect in the context of a concrete case involves too remote and abstract an inquiry for the proper exercise of the judicial function." Longshoremen v. Boyd, 347 U. S. 222, 224 (1954). In the present case, the remoteness and abstraction are increased by the fact that Chapter 39 has yet to be interpreted by the Texas courts. Thus, "[p]ostponing consideration of the questions presented, until a more concrete controversy arises, also has the advantage of permitting the state courts further opportunity to construe" the provisions. Renne, supra, at 323.
And as for hardship to the parties: This is not a case like Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, supra, at 152, where the regulation at issue had a "direct effect on the day-to-day business" of the plaintiffs, because they were compelled to affix required labeling to their products under threat of criminal sanction. Texas is not required to engage in, or to refrain from, any conduct, unless and until it chooses to implement one of the noncleared remedies. To be sure, if that contingency should arise compliance with the preclearance procedure could delay much needed action. (Prior to this litigation, Texas sought preclearance for the appointment of a master in a Dallas County school district, and despite a request for expedition the Attorney General took 90 days to give approval. See Brief for Appellant 37, n. 28.) But even that inconvenience is avoidable. If Texas is confident that
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