Cite as: 528 U. S. 320 (2000)
Syllabus
Held:
1. The Court rejects the Board's contention that these cases are mooted by the fact that the 1992 plan will never again be used because the next scheduled election will occur in 2002, when the Board will have a new plan in place based upon data from the 2000 census. In at least one respect, the 1992 plan will have probable continuing effect: It will serve as the baseline against which appellee's next voting plan will be evaluated for preclearance purposes. Pp. 327-328.
2. In light of § 5's language and Beer's holding, § 5 does not prohibit preclearance of a redistricting plan enacted with a discriminatory but nonretrogressive purpose. Pp. 328-341.
(a) In order to obtain preclearance, a covered jurisdiction must establish that the proposed change "does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color." The covered jurisdiction bears the burden of persuasion on both points. See, e. g., Bossier Parish I, supra, at 478. In Beer, the Court concluded that, in the context of a § 5 vote-dilution claim, the phrase "abridging the right to vote on account of race or color" limited the term "effect" to retrogressive effects. 425 U. S., at 141. Appellants' contention that in qualifying the term "purpose," the very same phrase does not impose a limitation to retrogression, but means discrimination more generally, is untenable. See BankAmerica Corp. v. United States, 462 U. S. 122, 129. Richmond v. United States, 422 U. S. 358, 378-379, distinguished. Appellants argue that subjecting both prongs to the same limitation produces a purpose prong with a trivial reach, covering only "incompetent retrogressors." If this were true—and if it were adequate to justify giving the very same words different meanings when qualifying "purpose" and "effect"— there would be instances in which this Court applied such a construction to the innumerable statutes barring conduct with a particular "purpose or effect," yet appellants are unable to cite a single case. Moreover, the purpose prong has value and effect even when it does not cover conduct additional to that of a so-called incompetent retrogressor: The Government need only refute a jurisdiction's prima facie showing that a proposed voting change does not have a retrogressive purpose, and need not counter the jurisdiction's evidence regarding actual retrogressive effect. Although virtually identical language in § 2(a) and the Fifteenth Amendment has been read to refer not only to retrogression, but to discrimination more generally, giving the language different meaning in § 5 is faithful to the different context in which the term "abridging" is used. Appellants' reading would exacerbate the "substantial" federalism costs that the preclearance procedure already exacts, Lopez v. Monterey County, 525 U. S. 266, 282, perhaps to the extent
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