Cite as: 528 U. S. 320 (2000)
Opinion of Souter, J.
In each context, it is clear that abridgment necessarily means something more subtle and less drastic than the complete denial of the right to cast a ballot, denial being separately forbidden. Abridgment therefore must be a condition in between complete denial, on the one hand, and complete enjoyment of voting power, on the other. The principal concept of diminished voting strength recognized as actionable under our cases is vote dilution, defined as a regime that denies to minority voters the same opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice that majority voters enjoy. See, e. g., Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S., at 46-47; 42 U. S. C. § 1973. The benchmark of dilution pure and simple is thus a system in which every minority voter has as good a chance at political participation and voting effectiveness as any other voter. Our cases have also recognized retrogression as a subspecies of dilution, the consequence of a scheme that not only gives a minority voter a lesser practical chance to participate and elect than a majority voter enjoys, but even reduces the minority voter's practical power from what a preceding scheme of electoral law provided. See Beer v. United States, 425 U. S., at 141. Although our cases have dealt with vote dilution only under the Fourteenth Amendment, see, e. g., Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630, 645 (1993), I know of no reason in text or history that dilution is not equally violative of the Fifteenth Amendment guarantee against abridgment. And while there has been serious dispute in the past over the Fourteenth Amendment's coverage of voting rights, see, e. g., Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U. S. 112, 154 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), I know of no reason to doubt that "abridg[e]" in the Fifteenth Amendment includes dilutive discrimination. See Bossier Parish I, 520
paltry coverage given that it is discriminatory purpose, not discriminatory effect, that is at the heart of the Fifteenth Amendment.
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