282
Opinion of the Court
within § 5 draws further support from the interpretation followed by the Attorney General in his administration of the statute"). The Attorney General's interpretation thus provides significant additional support for our reading of § 5.
In light of the section's plain language and the Attorney General's interpretation to the same effect, we conclude that § 5's preclearance requirement applies to a covered county's nondiscretionary efforts to implement a voting change required by state law, notwithstanding the fact that the State is not itself a covered jurisdiction. Accordingly, we need not reach appellants' alternative claim that the countywide district is in fact the product of the County's discretion.
B
The State also urges that requiring preclearance here would tread on rights constitutionally reserved to the States. The State contends, specifically, that § 5 could not withstand constitutional scrutiny if it were interpreted to apply to voting measures enacted by States that have not been designated as historical wrongdoers in the voting rights sphere. In the State's view, because California has not been designated as a covered jurisdiction, its laws are not subject to § 5 preclearance.
We have recognized that the Act, which authorizes federal intrusion into sensitive areas of state and local policy-making, imposes substantial "federalism costs." Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S., at 926. The Act was passed pursuant to Congress' authority under the Fifteenth Amendment, however, and we have likewise acknowledged that the Reconstruction Amendments by their nature contemplate some intrusion into areas traditionally reserved to the States. City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 179 (1980). As the Court recently observed with respect to Congress' power to legislate under the Fourteenth Amendment, "[l]egislation which deters or remedies constitutional violations can fall within the sweep of Congress' enforcement power even if in
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