Cite as: 528 U. S. 320 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
In Beer v. United States, 425 U. S. 130 (1976), this Court addressed the meaning of the no-effect requirement in the context of an allegation of vote dilution. The case presented the question whether a reapportionment plan that would have a discriminatory but nonretrogressive effect on the rights of black voters should be denied preclearance. Reasoning that § 5 must be read in light of its purpose of "insur[ing] that no voting-procedure changes would be made that would lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise," we held that "a legislative reapportionment that enhances the position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise can hardly have the 'effect' of diluting or abridging the right to vote on account of race within the meaning of § 5." Id., at 141. In other words, we concluded that, in the context of a § 5 challenge, the phrase "denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color"—or more specifically, in the context of a vote-dilution claim, the phrase "abridging the right to vote on account of race or color"—limited the term it qualified, "effect," to retrogressive effects.
Appellants contend that in qualifying the term "purpose," the very same phrase does not impose a limitation to retrogression—i. e., that the phrase "abridging the right to vote on account of race or color" means retrogression when it modifies "effect," but means discrimination more generally when it modifies "purpose." We think this is simply an untenable construction of the text, in effect recasting the phrase "does not have the purpose and will not have the effect of x" to read "does not have the purpose of y and will not have the effect of x." As we have in the past, we refuse to adopt a construction that would attribute different meanings to the same phrase in the same sentence, depending on which object it is modifying. See BankAmerica Corp. v. United States, 462 U. S. 122, 129 (1983) (declining to give
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