Cite as: 525 U. S. 266 (1999)
Thomas, J., dissenting
in some instances, literacy tests were required by the laws of noncovered jurisdictions, including California. Ante, at 284. I do not think, however, that the suspension of tests and the preclearance remedy can be compared. The literacy test had a history as a "notorious means to deny and abridge voting rights on racial grounds." Katzenbach, supra, at 355 (Black, J., concurring and dissenting). Literacy tests were unfairly administered; whites were given easy questions, and blacks were given more difficult questions, such as "the number of bubbles in a soap bar, the news contained in a copy of the Peking Daily, the meaning of obscure passages in state constitutions, and the definition of terms such as habeas corpus." A. Thernstrom, Whose Votes Count?, Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights 15 (1987). When we upheld the constitutionality of the suspension provision of the Voting Rights Act in Katzenbach, we indicated that the tests had actually been employed to disenfranchise black voters. 383 U. S., at 333-334. Later in Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112 (1970), we upheld the national ban on the use of such tests—even though we recognized that they were not facially unconstitutional—as a proper means of preventing purposeful discrimination in the application of the tests and remedying prior constitutional violations by state and local governments in the education of minorities. Congress' suspension of tests, then, was a focused remedy directed at one particular prerequisite to voting. In contrast, the preclearance requirement presumes that a voting change—no matter how innocuous—is invalid, and prevents its enforcement until the Federal Government gives its approval.
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I would interpret § 5 only to require preclearance of a covered jurisdiction's changes affecting voting qualifications, prerequisites, standards, practices, or procedures, whether made by formal enactment or otherwise. In my view, this
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