Thomas, J., dissenting
flagrant. 383 U. S., at 328; see also id., at 315–317 (describing the limited issues presented). Fourteen years later, City of Rome upheld the 1975 Act extending §5’s preclearance provisions for another seven years. See 446 U. S., at 172–173. The majority’s reliance on these cases to validate a statutory rule not there at issue could make sense only if we assessed the congruence and proportionality of the Voting Rights Act’s rules wholesale, without considering their individual features, or if Katzenbach and City of Rome meant that Congress has plenary power to enact whatever rules it chooses to characterize as combating “discriminatory … effect[s].” Ante, at 33 (internal quotation marks omitted). Neither proposition makes any conceptual sense or is consistent with our cases. See, e.g., Shelby County, 570 U. S., at 550–557 (holding the 2006 preclearance coverage formula unconstitutional); Northwest Austin Municipal Util. Dist. No. One v. Holder, 557 U. S. 193, 203 (2009) (emphasizing the distinctness of §§2 and 5); City of Boerne, 521 U. S., at 533 (discussing City of Rome as a paradigm case of congruence-and-proportionality review of remedial legislation); Miller, 515 U. S., at 927 (stressing that construing §5 to require “that States engage in presumptively unconstitutional race-based districting” would raise “troubling and difficult constitutional questions,” notwithstanding City of Rome).
In fact, the majority’s cases confirm the very limits on Congress’ enforcement powers that are fatal to the District Court’s construction of §2. City of Rome, for example, immediately after one of the sentences quoted by the majority, explained the remedial rationale for its approval of the 1975 preclearance extension: “Congress could rationally have concluded that, because electoral changes by jurisdictions with a demonstrable history of intentional racial discrimination in voting create the risk of purposeful discrimination, it was proper to prohibit changes that have a discriminatory impact.” 446 U. S., at 177 (emphasis added; footnote
