Cite as: 525 U. S. 266 (1999)
Thomas, J., dissenting
exercise of policy choice and discretion by [state] officials"). For example, the 1979 state law which codified the county's merger of its municipal court districts stated on its face that it was enacted at the county's behest. 1979 Cal. Stats., ch. 694, § 4 ("[T]his act is in accordance with the request of a local governmental entity or entities which desired legislative authority to carry out the program specified in this act"). In these circumstances, the county was required to seek preclearance of the voting changes codified by the state enactments.
Justice Thomas, dissenting.
The majority today interprets the phrase "seek to administer" as used in § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, to require that a covered political subdivision seek federal approval of any law enacted by a noncovered State that effects a change with respect to voting in the covered political subdivision, so long as the covered political subdivision somehow implements the State's law. I do not think the majority's is the best reading of the statute; moreover, I think the majority's interpretation is constitutionally doubtful. I would read § 5 to require preclearance only of those voting changes that are the direct product of a covered jurisdiction's policy choices. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
I
As the majority notes, ante, at 269, Monterey County (County) is a covered jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act, but the State of California is not. Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act provides that whenever a covered "State or political subdivision . . . shall enact or seek to administer any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting" that differs from those in effect on the date that the State or subdivision became a covered jurisdiction, it must obtain
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