Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/679

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

521

Stevens, J., dissenting

appointed official, or to a group of elected officials controlled by the majority. Although this type of response to burgeoning black registration may not have been prevalent during the early history of the Act, it has been an active concern of the Attorney General since 1976. See n. 3, supra. In my judgment, such a change in the reallocation of decisionmaking authority in an elective office, at least in its most blatant form, is indistinguishable from, and just as unacceptable as, gerrymandering boundary lines or switching elections from a district to an at-large basis. II The two resolutions adopted by the Etowah County Commission on August 25, 1987, less than nine months after the county’s first black commissioner took office, were an obvious response to the redistricting of the county that produced a majority black district from which a black commissioner was elected. In my view, it was wrong for the District Court to divorce the two parts of this consolidated response and to analyze the two resolutions separately.22 The characteriza22

The District Court was also wrong to exempt the Common Fund Resolution from § 5 preclearance on the ground that “the common fund resolution was, in practical terms, insignificant in comparison to the entire Commission’s authority. . . .” App. to Juris. Statement of Appellant Presley 19a. This is clearly the wrong test in light of our earlier cases, in which we have said that even “minor” changes affecting elections and voting must be precleared. Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S., at 566, 568 (“It is significant that Congress chose not to include even . . . minor exceptions in § 5, thus indicating an intention that all changes, no matter how small, be subjected to § 5 scrutiny”); see also Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S., at 387. For example, the Court has said that § 5 preclearance applies to the transfer of a polling place, id., at 388, and the extension of city limits to include uninhabited territory, Pleasant Grove v. United States, 479 U. S. 462, 467 (1987), even though these changes might, at first blush, appear to be “insignificant.” The District Court mistakenly blurred the distinction between whether a change is subject to preclearance, which turns on whether the change has the potential for discrimination, and whether the change should, in fact, be precleared, which turns on whether