Louisiana v. Callais · ¶72

Only when understood this way does § 2 of the Voting Rights Act properly ft within Congress's Fifteenth Amendment enforcement power. See, e. g., I. N. S. v. St. Cyr, 533 U. S. 289, 299–300 (2001) (“[I]f an otherwise acceptable construction of a statute would raise serious constitutional problems, and where an alternative interpretation of the statute is `fairly possible,' we are obligated to construe the statute to avoid such problems” (citation omitted)). By contrast, interpreting § 2 of the Voting Rights Act to outlaw a map solely because it fails to provide a sufficient number of majority- minority districts would create a right that the Amendment does not protect. And such an interpretation would run headlong into the Act's express disclaimer against racial proportionality.

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