22 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court additional permissible criteria the legislature chooses to use. For example, the legislature might want to minimize changes in the prior map, avoid districts with discontiguous territory, and avoid splitting counties or municipalities. It might impose a certain standard of compactness, aim to protect some or all incumbents, or promote the prospects of a particular political party. When this algorithm is used, the map it produces may place a particular voter or group of voters in a district in which a majority generally agrees, generally disagrees, or only sometimes agrees with their voting preferences. But in any event, the “opportunity” of these “members of the electorate” to contribute their votes to a winning cause is whatever opportunity results from the application of the State’s combination of permissible criteria. That is what our randomly selected individual voter and group of voters can expect regarding their opportunity to elect a preferred candidate. And under §2, a minority voter is entitled to nothing less and nothing more. 2 Not only is this the best reading of the statutory text, but it also ensures that §2 of the Voting Rights Act does not exceed Congress’s authority under §2 of the Fifteenth Amendment. That provision confers the “power to enforce [the Amendment] by appropriate legislation.” Thus, to lie within Congress’s authority, §2 of the Voting Rights Act must “effectuate by ‘appropriate’ measures the constitutional prohibition” in §1 of the Fifteenth Amendment. Katzenbach, 383 U. S., at 308. Our Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment jurisprudence delineates what constitutes “appropriate” legislation in the sense relevant here. See City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U. S. 507, 518 (1997) (stating that Congress has “parallel power to enforce the provisions” of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments). In legislation enforcing these Amendments,