Cite as: 528 U. S. 320 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
areas with a lower proportion of minority voters than the annexing unit. The case certainly does not stand for the proposition that the purpose and effect prongs have fundamentally different meanings—the latter requiring retrogression, and the former not—which is what is urged here. The approved effect of the redistricting in Richmond, and the hypothetically disapproved purpose, were both retrogressive. We found it necessary to make an exception to normal retrogressive-effect principles, but not to normal retrogressive-purpose principles, in order to permit routine annexation. That sheds little light upon the issue before us here.
Appellants' only textual justification for giving the purpose and effect prongs different meanings is that to do otherwise "would reduce the purpose prong of Section 5 to a trivial matter," Brief for Federal Appellant on Reargument 13; would "effectively delet[e] the 'purpose' prong," Reply Brief for Appellants Price et al. on Reargument 3; and would give the purpose prong "a trivial reach, limited to the case of the incompetent retrogressor," Reply Brief for Federal Appellant 9. If this were true—and if it were adequate to justify giving the very same words a different meaning when qualifying "purpose" than when qualifying "effect"—one would expect appellants to cite at least some instances in which this Court applied such muscular construction to the innumerable statutes barring conduct with a particular "purpose or effect." See, e. g., 7 U. S. C. § 192(d) (prohibiting sale of any article "for the purpose or with the effect of manipulating or controlling prices" in the meatpacking industry); 12 U. S. C. § 1467a(c)(1)(A) (barring savings and loan holding companies from engaging in any activity on behalf of a savings association subsidiary "for the purpose or with the effect of evading any law or regulation applicable to such savings association"); 47 U. S. C. § 541(b)(3)(B) (1994 ed., Supp. III) (prohibiting cable franchising authorities from imposing any requirement that "has
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