Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board
The Supreme Court ruled that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires certain places with histories of discrimination to get federal approval before changing voting rules, only blocks plans that make minority voters worse off than the current system — not plans adopted for a discriminatory reason that don't cause that kind of backsliding.
The decision let Louisiana's Bossier Parish School Board use a redistricting plan with no majority-black districts even though evidence suggested the Board rejected a plan with such districts specifically to keep black representation down, because the adopted plan was no worse than what it replaced.
“in vote-dilution cases § 5 prevents nothing but backsliding, and preclearance under § 5 affirms nothing but the absence of backsliding.”
The majority's core explanation of what Section 5 preclearance does and does not accomplish.
How it got here: The Attorney General refused to preclear the plan; the Board sued for judicial preclearance in the D.C. federal district court, which twice ruled for the Board, and the case reached the Supreme Court on direct appeal each time.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Bossier Parish, Louisiana, a school district with a history of discriminatory voting practices, had to redraw its 12-member school board's voting districts after the 1990 census. Black residents made up about 20% of the population, but the NAACP's local chapter president proposed a plan creating two majority-black districts. The Board rejected that plan and instead adopted the parish's Police Jury plan, which had no majority-black districts, prompting the Attorney General to object and years of litigation over whether the Board's plan could be approved.
The question before the Court
Does a federal voting-rights law that blocks discriminatory election changes also block a redistricting plan drawn for a discriminatory reason, even if it doesn't make things worse for minority voters than before?
Why it matters
Local governments in places with a history of voting discrimination gained more room to adopt redistricting plans without fear that federal preclearance review would examine whether the plan was chosen for discriminatory reasons, so long as it didn't reduce minority voting power below the prior baseline. Anyone wanting to challenge such a plan as intentionally discriminatory would need to sue separately under a different part of the law.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision resolving the meaning of Section 5's purpose requirement, so the Bossier Parish School Board's 1992 redistricting plan was approved and became the baseline against which any future plan would be measured. The ruling does not decide whether the plan is unconstitutional; opponents remained free to challenge it under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or under the Constitution directly through a separate lawsuit rather than through preclearance.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Bossier Parish's plan was constitutional or whether it violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which separately bars discriminatory voting practices; it only decided that Section 5's preclearance process could not be used to block a nonretrogressive but allegedly discriminatory plan. It also left the plan open to a later constitutional or Section 2 challenge.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas noted that while this litigation over whether a majority-black district was necessary to elect a black school board member was pending, three black candidates were actually elected from majority-white districts. He suggested this outcome, though outside the record, illustrated that the federal intervention prompting the lawsuit was unnecessary.
Dissent in part — Justice Souter
“The Court was mistaken in Beer when it restricted the effect prong of § 5 to retrogression, and the Court is even more wrong today when it limits the clear text of § 5 to the corresponding retrogressive purpose.”Souter's central objection that the majority compounded an earlier error from Beer.
Justice Souter agreed only on the mootness issue but argued at length that Section 5's purpose prong should cover any discriminatory purpose, not just an intent to cause retrogression, given the parallel language of the Fifteenth Amendment. He reviewed extensive record evidence that the Board acted with intent to dilute black voting strength and argued the majority's holding effectively overruled Richmond and Pleasant Grove without saying so.
Dissent — Justice Stevens
Justice Stevens argued that the plain language of Section 5 covers any present-tense intentional effort to deny or abridge voting rights based on race, not merely retrogressive purpose, and that the Justice Department's longstanding contrary construction deserved deference. He agreed with Justice Souter's more detailed reasoning.
Dissent — Justice Breyer
Justice Breyer would not revisit Beer's effects holding but argued that Section 5's purpose prong independently bars preclearance of a plan intended to unconstitutionally deprive minorities of the vote, using a historical example from Forrest County, Mississippi, to show why a retrogression-only test for purpose would leave the worst discrimination unaddressed.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court read the two-part text of Section 5 — requiring a covered jurisdiction to show its voting change has neither a discriminatory 'purpose' nor a discriminatory 'effect' — and reasoned that the same phrase, 'denying or abridging the right to vote,' must carry the same meaning whether it modifies 'purpose' or 'effect' within a single sentence.
- The Court had already held in a prior case, Beer v. United States (a 1976 decision limiting the 'effect' half of Section 5 to backsliding, called retrogression, rather than any discriminatory effect), that a plan violates the effect prong only if it leaves minority voters worse off than before.
- Applying the same logic to the 'purpose' prong, the Court concluded that a plan's purpose only defeats preclearance if that purpose is to cause retrogression — not merely to dilute minority voting strength in some more general, non-retrogressive way.
- The Court distinguished two prior cases the challengers relied on: it read Richmond v. United States as creating only a narrow, practical exception for annexations rather than showing that purpose and effect have fundamentally different meanings, and it read Pleasant Grove v. United States as involving a jurisdiction with no current black voters intending to suppress future minority voting strength — which the Court characterized as still a form of retrogressive purpose, not a broader nonretrogressive one.
- Because Section 5 exists only to prevent backsliding from an existing baseline, the Court reasoned that a plan can only be blocked in advance under Section 5's preclearance process if it is retrogressive; any other type of discriminatory purpose would have to be challenged afterward through an ordinary lawsuit under a different provision, Section 2.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Beer v. United States (425 U. S. 130)
The Court relied on and extended Beer's rule that only retrogressive changes violate Section 5, applying it to the purpose prong too.
Distinguishes Richmond v. United States (422 U. S. 358)
The Court said Richmond was just a narrow, practical exception for annexations, not proof that purpose and effect mean different things.
Distinguishes Pleasant Grove v. United States (479 U. S. 462)
The Court read this case as still about retrogressive purpose against future minority voters, not a broader nonretrogressive purpose.