Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/664

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PRESLEY v. ETOWAH COUNTY COMM’N Opinion of the Court

officials could carry with it a potential for discrimination against those who represent racial minorities at the local level. At the same time, increasing the power of local officials will entail a relative decrease in the power of state officials, and that too could carry with it a potential for discrimination against state officials who represent racial minorities at the state level. The all but limitless minor changes in the allocation of power among officials and the constant adjustments required for the efficient governance of every covered State illustrate the necessity for us to formulate workable rules to confine the coverage of § 5 to its legitimate sphere: voting. Changes which affect only the distribution of power among officials are not subject to § 5 because such changes have no direct relation to, or impact on, voting. The Etowah County Commission’s Common Fund Resolution was not subject to the preclearance requirement. B We next consider Russell County’s adoption of the Unit System and its concomitant transfer of operations to the county engineer. Of the four categories of changes in rules governing voting we have recognized to date, there is not even an arguable basis for saying that adoption of the Unit System fits within any of the first three. As to the fourth category, it might be argued that the delegation of authority to an appointed official is similar to the replacement of an elected official with an appointed one, the change we held subject to § 5 in Bunton v. Patterson. This approach, however, would ignore the rationale for our holding: “[A]fter the change, [the citizen] is prohibited from electing an officer formerly subject to the approval of the voters.” Allen, 393 U. S., at 569–570. In short, the change in Bunton v. Patterson involved a rule governing voting not because it effected a change in the relative authority of various governmental