4 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment authorizes Congress to enact “appropriate legislation” to enforce the Amendment’s protections, and in 1965 Congress invoked that power to enact the Voting Rights Act. Brnovich, 594 U. S., at 656. “The Act and its amendments in the 1970s specifically forbade some of the practices that had been used to suppress black voting,” including literacy tests and poll taxes. Ibid.; see 52 U. S. C. §10301; §§4(a), (c), 79 Stat. 438–439; §6, 84 Stat. 315; §102, 89 Stat. 400, as amended, 52 U. S. C. §§10303(a), (c), 10501 (prohibiting the denial of the right to vote in any election for failure to pass a test demonstrating literacy, educational achievement or knowledge of any particular subject, or good moral character); see also §10, 79 Stat. 442, as amended, 52 U. S. C. §10306 (declaring poll taxes unlawful); §11, 79 Stat. 443, as amended, 52 U. S. C. §10307 (prohibiting intimidation and the refusal to allow or count votes). We upheld many of these provisions in Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 316, 327–337. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in its original form “closely tracked the language of the Amendment it was adopted to enforce.” Brnovich, 594 U. S., at 656. At that time, §2 stated simply that “[n]o voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” 79 Stat. 437. In Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980), the Court interpreted this language, and four Justices concluded in a plurality opinion that “facially neutral voting practices violate §2 only if motivated by a discriminatory purpose.” Brnovich, 594 U. S., at 658. Justice Stevens, who concurred in the judgment, proposed a different but similarly demanding standard. See Bolden, 446 U. S., at 90–94. Indeed, in his view, a districting practice, even if motivated in part by race, would not violate §2 so long as it was “supported by valid and articulable justifications.” Id., at 91–92.