Cite as: 538 U. S. 254 (2003)
Syllabus
Held: The judgment is affirmed.
189 F. Supp. 2d 548, affirmed.
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III-A, holding:
1. The District Court properly enjoined enforcement of the state-court plan. Pp. 261-266.
(a) There are two critical distinctions between these cases and Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25. First, there is no suggestion here that the District Court failed to allow the state court adequate opportunity to develop a redistricting plan. Second, the state-court plan here was subject to § 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The controversy over whether the state-court plan was precleared centers on § 5's proviso that whenever a covered jurisdiction "shall enact or seek to administer" a voting change, the change may be enforced if the Attorney General does not object within 60 days. Pp. 261-263.
(b) DOJ's failure to object within 60 days of the state attorney general's original submission did not render the state-court plan enforceable on February 25. A jurisdiction seeking preclearance must provide the Attorney General with information sufficient to prove that the change is nondiscriminatory. DOJ regulations—which are "wholly reasonable and consistent with the Act," Georgia v. United States, 411 U. S. 526, 541—provide that incomplete state submissions do not start the 60-day clock, and that the clock begins to run from the date that requested information is received. DOJ's request here, which was neither frivolous nor unwarranted, postponed the 60-day period. Pp. 263-264.
(c) The state-court plan was also not precleared 60 days after the state attorney general submitted the requested information. The State was "seek[ing] to administer" the changes within § 5's meaning when its attorney general made his initial submission to DOJ and when he provided additional information. However, when the State failed to appeal the District Court's injunction, it ceased "seek[ing] to administer" the state-court plan. The 60-day period was no longer running, so the plan was not rendered enforceable by operation of law. Because a private party's actions are not those of a State, the state plaintiffs' appeal is insufficient to demonstrate that the State still "seek[s] to administer" the plan. Pp. 264-265.
(d) Since this Court affirms the injunction on the ground that the state-court plan was not precleared and could not be precleared in time for the 2002 election, the Court vacates the District Court's alternative holding that such plan was unconstitutional. Pp. 265-266.
2. The District Court properly fashioned its own congressional re-apportionment plan under 2 U. S. C. § 2c. The tension between
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