Cite as: 538 U. S. 254 (2003)
Opinion of Scalia, J.
§ 2a(c); we have said that they help to explain the meaning of § 2c, which was enacted after they were decided. And it is, of course, the most rudimentary rule of statutory construction (which one would have thought familiar to dissenters so prone to preachment on that subject, see, e. g., post, at 298, 304, 307) that courts do not interpret statutes in isolation, but in the context of the corpus juris of which they are a part, including later-enacted statutes:
"The correct rule of interpretation is, that if divers statutes relate to the same thing, they ought all to be taken into consideration in construing any one of them . . . . If a thing contained in a subsequent statute, be within the reason of a former statute, it shall be taken to be within the meaning of that statute . . . ; and if it can be gathered from a subsequent statute in pari materia, what meaning the legislature attached to the words of a former statute, they will amount to a legislative declaration of its meaning, and will govern the construction of the first statute." United States v. Freeman, 3 How. 556, 564-565 (1845).
That is to say, the meaning of § 2c (illuminated by the Baker v. Carr line of cases) sheds light upon the meaning of § 2a(c). Finally, the dissent gives the statutory phrase "redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof" a meaning that is highly unusual. It means, according to the dissent, "redistricted as state law requires," even when state law is unconstitutional—so that even an unconstitutional redistricting satisfies the "until" clause of § 2a(c), and enables § 2c to be applied. We know of no other instance in which a federal statute acknowledges to be "state law" a provision that violates the Supremacy Clause and is therefore a legal nullity. It is particularly peculiar for the dissent to allow an unconstitutional redistricting to satisfy the "until" clause when it will not allow a nonprecleared redistricting to satisfy the "until" clause (in those States subject to § 5 of the
281
Page: Index Previous 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007