304
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
went into effect, however, States could no longer use multi-member districts. Rather, States could either redistrict using single-member districts or use at-large elections. In short, § 2c does not tell States that they must pass redistricting legislation. Section 2c is instead a restriction on the type of legislation that a State may pass—a restriction completely consistent with New York and Printz. And § 2a(c) provides that at-large elections will be the default mechanism if States choose not to pass redistricting legislation.
An interpretation of § 2a(c) which mandates that courts order at-large elections "[u]ntil a State is redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof" does not mean that once a redistricting plan is in effect, § 2a(c) applies if a court later deems the apportionment plan invalid. The words of § 2a(c) specifically refer to the process in which the State redistricts: "in the manner provided by the law thereof." Section 2a(c) is no longer implicated after the State finishes its process of redistricting "in the manner provided by the law thereof after any apportionment." When all required action by the State is complete, and when the state plan first becomes effective, the "State is redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof." Ibid.
B
Because the plurality's construction of § 2a(c) has no statutory basis, the only way to understand the Court's opinion is that the Court is overlooking the words of the statute for nontextual prudential reasons. Cf. A. Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation 18-23 (1997) (discussing the case of Church of Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U. S. 457 (1892), and noting that "Congress can enact foolish statutes as well as wise ones, and it is not for the courts to decide which is which and rewrite the former").
The only other prudential reason why the plurality would distort the plain text of § 2a(c) is to hold sub silentio that
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