Opinion of the Court
only to the extent that it approximated a standard of proportional representation by race.” Boyd & Markman 1392. The Attorney General had the same concern. The effects test “would be triggered whenever election results did not mirror the population mix of a particular community,” he wrote, producing “essentially a quota system for electoral politics.” N. Y. Times, Mar. 27, 1982, p. 23.
The impasse was not resolved until late April 1982, when Senator Bob Dole proposed a compromise. Boyd & Markman 1414. Section 2 would include the effects test that many desired but also a robust disclaimer against proportionality. Seeking to navigate any tension between the two, the Dole Amendment borrowed language from a Fourteenth Amendment case of ours, White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973), which many in Congress believed would allow courts to consider effects but avoid proportionality. The standard for liability in voting cases, White explained, was whether “the political processes leading to nomination and election were not equally open to participation by the group in question—[in] that its members had less opportunity than did other residents in the district to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice.” Id., at 766.
The Dole compromise won bipartisan support and, on June 18, the Senate passed the 1982 amendments by an overwhelming margin, 85–8. Eleven days later, President Reagan signed the Act into law. The amended §2 reads as follows:
“(a) No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color … as provided in subsection (b).
“(b) A violation of subsection (a) is established if,
