Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/667

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Cite as: 502 U. S. 491 (1992)

509

Opinion of the Court

ron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842–844 (1984). Because the first of these conditions is not satisfied in the cases before us we do not defer to the Attorney General’s interpretation of the Act. We do not believe that in its use of the phrase “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting,” 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, the statute is ambiguous as to the question whether § 5 extends beyond changes in rules governing voting. To be sure, reasonable minds may differ as to whether some particular changes in the law of a covered jurisdiction should be classified as changes in rules governing voting. In that sense § 5 leaves a gap for interpretation to fill. See Chevron, supra, at 843. When the Attorney General makes a reasonable argument that a contested change should be classified as a change in a rule governing voting, we can defer to that judgment. But § 5 is unambiguous with respect to the question whether it covers changes other than changes in rules governing voting: It does not. The administrative position in the present cases is not entitled to deference, for it suggests the contrary. The United States argues that the changes are covered by § 5 because they implicate the decisionmaking authority of elected officials, even though they are not changes in rules governing voting. This argument does not meet the express requirement of the statute. V Nothing we say implies that the conduct at issue in these cases is not actionable under a different remedial scheme. The Voting Rights Act is not an all-purpose antidiscrimination statute. The fact that the intrusive mechanisms of the Act do not apply to other forms of pernicious discrimination does not undermine its utility in combating the specific evils it was designed to address. Our prior cases hold, and we reaffirm today, that every change in rules governing voting must be precleared. The