Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/675

 502us2$30I 09-08-95 14:43:51 PAGES OPINPGT

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

517

Stevens, J., dissenting

described § 5 as “aimed at the subtle, as well as the obvious, state regulations which have the effect of denying citizens their right to vote because of their race,” id., at 565, and expressed, in no uncertain terms, that § 5 should be given “the broadest possible scope,” id., at 567. Aware of the consequences of its decision, the Court gave its broad reading of the Act “only prospective effect.” Id., at 572. The Court’s construction of the Act in Allen, as requiring preclearance of changes in covered jurisdictions that were responsive to the increase in the number of black registered voters,14 was consistent with the concern that justified the extraordinary remedy set forth in § 5 itself, particularly the concern that recalcitrant white majorities could be expected to devise new stratagems to maintain their political power if not closely scrutinized. “The rationale of this ‘uncommon exercise’ of congressional power which sustained its constitutional validity was a presumption that jurisdictions which had ‘resorted to the extraordinary stratagem of contriving new rules of various kinds for the sole purpose of perpetuating voting discrimination in the face of adverse federal court decrees’ would be likely to engage in ‘similar maneuvers in the future in order to evade the remedies 503, 506–507. The Court’s approach today marks a departure from the approach we have taken in the past. For example, in NAACP v. Hampton County Election Comm’n, even though the Court recognized that it had “never addressed itself to alterations in voting procedures that exactly parallel those at issue in this case,” 470 U. S., at 176, it nevertheless concluded that § 5 was broad enough to encompass a change in election date, id., at 182–183. 14 U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, The Voting Rights Act: Ten Years After, at 69 (“The end of formal barriers brought about by the Voting Rights Act resulted in an immediate increase in minority registration”); H. R. Rep. No. 94–196, p. 6 (1975) (“Prior to 1965, the black registration rate in the State of Alabama lagged behind that of whites in that state by 49.9 percentage points. In 1972, that disparity had decreased to 23.6 percentage points”).