holding that the amendments to the Voting Rights Act did “not ... reflect a broad and boundless ‘trend’ to expand the Act to protect classes not described in the Act, or to protect combinations of classes not described in the Act”
How later courts described this case
- holding that the amendments to the Voting Rights Act did “not ... reflect a broad and boundless ‘trend’ to expand the Act to protect classes not described in the Act, or to protect combinations of classes not described in the Act”
- ruling against aggregating minority groups to meet first Gingles condition
- Courts “must interpret the statute as a whole, making every effort not to interpret a provision in a manner that renders other provisions of the same statute inconsistent, meaningless, or superfluous.”
- “Where the language of a statute is ambiguous, this Court reviews the legislative history because the ‘cardinal canon of statutory construction [is] that statutes should be interpreted harmoniously with their dominant legislative purpose.’ ”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
MOORE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
For the reasons ably explained by Judge Keith in Parts I, II, and IIIA of his dissenting opinion, traditional principles of statutory interpretation require that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act be interpreted to include within a “protected class” a coalition of groups of persons protected by the Voting Rights Act. Therefore I DISSENT from the majority opinion and join in Parts I, II, and IIIA of Judge Keith’s dissenting opinion.