Cite as: 538 U. S. 254 (2003)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
this litigation alleged a constitutional violation, and the federal court drew a plan to remedy that violation. Having found a constitutional violation, the federal court was required to fashion the appropriate remedy of § 2c or § 2a(c) depending on whether the "State is redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof." 2 U. S. C. § 2a(c).
The plurality's reading of § 2a(c) also fails on its own terms. As the plurality appears to acknowledge, ante, at 277, the plain text of § 2a(c) requires courts to apply § 2a(c) before applying § 2c. Yet the plurality never justifies why, when it is interpreting § 2a(c), it looks to § 2c instead of reading the plain language of § 2a(c) itself. If state law really includes federal law, as the Court maintains, both §§ 2c and 2a(c) are equally applicable. The text of § 2a(c) directs federal courts to order at-large elections "[u]ntil a State is redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof." In deciding whether § 2c or § 2a(c) is applicable, it is no answer to escape the directive of § 2a(c) by pointing to the text of § 2c. Indeed, if one takes at face value the plurality's statement that § 2a(c) "continues to apply," ante, at 273, a court should not look at § 2c until the State complies with the terms of § 2a(c). Section 2a(c) is antecedent to § 2c, since § 2a(c) defines when at-large elections are appropriate.
Moreover, the Court's interpretation of the interplay between §§ 2a(c) and 2c calls into question this Court's anti-commandeering jurisprudence. See, e. g., New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 166 (1992) ("We have always understood that even where Congress has the authority under the Constitution to pass laws requiring or prohibiting certain acts, it lacks the power directly to compel the States to require or prohibit those acts"); and Printz v. United States, 521 U. S. 898, 912 (1997) (Scalia, J.) ("[S]tate legislatures are not subject to federal direction"). The plurality states that the anticommandeering jurisprudence is inapplicable to Article I, § 4, because that section gives Congress the power to "Regulat[e]" the times, places, and manner of
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