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Opinion of O'Connor, J.
in the manner provided by the law thereof after any apportionment," a court cannot draw single-member districts. Ibid. (emphasis added). The court must apply the terms of § 2a(c) and order at-large elections. If, however, the State is redistricted "in the manner provided by the law thereof," § 2c applies. Thus, after a State has been redistricted, if a court determines that the redistricting violates the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act, the correct remedy for such a violation is the § 2c procedure of drawing single-member districts that comport with federal statutory law and the Constitution. But "[u]ntil a State is redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof," § 2a(c)(5) mandates that a court order at-large elections. In short, a court should enforce § 2a(c) before a "State is redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof," and a court should enforce § 2c after a State has been "redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof."
The plurality seems to forget that in cases such as this one, a federal court has the power to redistrict only because private parties have alleged a violation of the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. Sections 2a(c) and 2c do not create independently enforceable private rights of action themselves. Rather, both these provisions address the remedy that a federal court must order if it finds a violation of a constitutional or statutory right.1 The federal plaintiffs in
1 It does not matter whether § 2a(c) applies exclusively to legislative redistricting. Under the terms of § 2a(c), courts can be involved in the redistricting process. To the extent that courts are part of the "manner provided by the law thereof," courts may redistrict. 2 U. S. C. § 2a(c). And contrary to the plurality's interpretation, the text of § 2a(c) makes clear that this "manner" refers exclusively to state law. The manner in which a State redistricts can only refer to the process by which a State redistricts. Moreover, the plurality's conflation of state and federal law is in substantial tension with this Court's opinion in Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89 (1984) (delineating a distinction between state and federal law when a federal court enters an injunction).
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