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Opinion of the Court
ment statute insofar as that statute concerned [the covered] Counties," 430 U. S., at 148-149. Moreover, the decision's constitutional analysis relies on the fact that the redistricting effort was meant to fulfill the State's obligations under the Act. Id., at 162 ("[P]etitioners have not shown, or offered to prove, that New York did more than the Attorney General was authorized to require it to do . . ."); see also Shaw v. Hunt, 517 U. S. 899, 911-913 (1996) (evaluating whether partially covered State's § 5 obligations justified race-based districting without any consideration that State may not have been subject to preclearance requirement). These decisions reveal a clear assumption by this Court that § 5 preclearance is required where a noncovered State effects voting changes in covered counties.
Nor have we been alone in this assumption. The Department of Justice claims to have received more than 1,300 submissions seeking to preclear state laws from the seven States that are currently partially covered: California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, and South Dakota. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Support of Juris. Statement 13, n. 3; see also 28 CFR pt. 51, App. (1997) (identifying partially covered States); see generally Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S. 379, 392 (1971) (noting that a particular interpretation of § 5 "was accepted by at least some affected States and political subdivisions, which had submitted such changes for the Attorney General's approval"). In fact, cases before this and other federal courts reveal numerous instances in which interested parties have labored under the assumption that laws enacted by partially covered States require preclearance before they take effect in covered jurisdictions. See, e. g., Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630, 634 (1993) ("Because the [North Carolina] General Assembly's reapportionment plan affected the covered counties, the parties agree that § 5 applied"); Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U. S. 997, 1001, n. 2 (1994) (Florida submitted statewide redistricting law for preclearance because five
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