Cite as: 528 U. S. 320 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
§ 1973c, prohibits preclearance of a redistricting plan enacted with a discriminatory but nonretrogressive purpose.
I
This is the second time the present cases are before us, and we thus recite the facts and procedural history only in brief. Like every other political subdivision of the State of Louisiana, Bossier Parish, because of its history of discriminatory voting practices, is a jurisdiction covered by § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. See 42 U. S. C. §§ 1973c, 1973b(a), (b); 30 Fed. Reg. 9897 (1965). It is therefore prohibited from enacting any change in a "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting," without first obtaining either administrative pre-clearance from the Attorney General or judicial preclearance from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. 42 U. S. C. § 1973c.
Bossier Parish is governed by a 12-member Police Jury elected from single-member districts for 4-year terms. In the early 1990's, the Police Jury set out to redraw its electoral districts in order to account for demographic changes reflected in the decennial census. In 1991, it adopted a redistricting plan which, like the plan then in effect, contained no majority-black districts, although blacks made up approximately 20% of the parish's population. On May 28, 1991, the Police Jury submitted its new districting plan to the Attorney General; two months later, the Attorney General granted preclearance.
The Bossier Parish School Board (Board) is constituted in the same fashion as the Police Jury, and it too undertook to redraw its districts after the 1990 census. During the course of that redistricting, appellant-intervenor George Price, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), proposed that the Board adopt a plan with majority-black districts. In the fall of 1992, amid some controversy, the
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