535 Opinion of POWELL, J. validly enacted prior to § 5's becoming applicable to Texas, cannot be considered as effective law until it has secured the necessary approval. The same is said with respect to the Charter amendment approved by the people of Dallas in 1976. See n. 3, supra. We think it inappropriate, however, to address the § 5 issue. Respondents may, of course, seek to sustain the judgment below on grounds not employed by the Court of Appeals; but there is a preliminary question as to whether the § 5 issue is open in this Court. Respondents did not crosspetition, and sustaining the § 5 submission, even if it would not expand the relief in respondents' favor, would alter the nature of the judgment issued by the Court of Appeals. See United States v. New York Telephone Co., 434 U. S. 159, 166 n. 8 (1977). In any event, however, we are not obligated to address the issue here, particularly where the Court of Appeals did not deal with it one way or another-apparently because it considered the plan to be a judicial product beyond the reach of the section. The impact of the Voting Rights Act on the city ordinance and on the Charter amendment approved by referendum will be open on remand, and we deem it appropriate for the Court of Appeals to deal with these questions. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings. So ordered. MR. JUSTICE POWELL, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST join, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. I agree with MR. JUSTICE WHITE's conclusion that the reapportionment plan adopted by the Dallas City Council was a "legislative plan" for purposes of review by a federal court. In my view, however, his reasoning in reaching that conclusion casts doubt on Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73 (1966). Opinion of POWELL, J. 437 U.S. MR. JUSTICE WHITE reads East Carroll Parish School Bd. v. Marshall, 424 U. S. 636 (1976), as establishing the principle that a proposed reapportionment plan cannot be considered a legislative plan if the political body suggesting it lacks legal power to reapportion itself. Ante, at 545. Because the City Council ordinarily would have had no power to reapportion itself a Charter amendment being necessary to that endMR. JUSTICE WHITE is constrained to assume that the Council became imbued with such power after the District Court struck down the apportionment provisions of the City Charter. Aside from the fact that this aspect of Texas law was neither fully briefed nor argued, the assumption seems unnecessary. In Burns v. Richardson, supra, the Hawaii Legislature was without power to reapportion itself, a constitutional amendment being required for that purpose. Nevertheless, this Court treated the plan that the legislature proposed to submit to the voters as a legislative plan. By parity of reasoning, the plan proposed by the Dallas City Council in this case must be considered legislative, even if the Council had no power to reapportion itself. The Council plan was then implemented by court order, 399 F. Supp. 782, 798 (ND Tex. 1975), just as the legislature's plan in Burns ultimately was imposed pending the outcome of the constitutional amendment process, 384 U. S., at 98. The essential point is that the Dallas City Council exercised a legislative judgment, reflecting the policy choices of the elected representatives of the people, rather than the remedial directive of a federal court. As we held in Burns, supra, at 85, "a State's freedom of choice to devise substitutes for an apportionment plan found unconstitutional, either as a whole or in part, should not be restricted beyond the clear commands of the Equal Protection Clause." This rule of deference to local legislative judgments remains in force even if, as in Burns, our examination of state law suggests that the local body lacks authority to reapportion itself. 535 Opinion of REHNQUIST, J. Thus, MR. JUSTICE WHITE's statement that East Carroll School Bd. stands for the proposition that a plan submitted by a political body without power to reapportion itself cannot be considered a legislative plan appears to be in direct conflict with Burns. Because the brief per curiam in East Carroll did not even cite Burns, I would read it as turning on its peculiar facts. In response to the litigation in East Carroll, the legislature enacted a statute enabling police juries and school boards to reapportion themselves by employing at-large elections. That enabling legislation was disapproved by the Attorney General of the United States under § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1973c (1970 ed., Supp. V), because of its impermissible impact on Negro voters. This determination meant that the specific plans proposed by the school board and police jury in that case would have had unlawful effects. Because their legislative judgment had been found tainted in that respect, it followed that the normal presumption of legitimacy afforded the balances reflected in legislative plans, see Burns, supra, at 84-85, could not be indulged. To the extent that East Carroll implies anything further about the principle established in Burns, the latter must be held to control. Having determined on the basis of Burns that the City Council plan was legislative, I agree with MR. JUSTICE WHITE'S Conclusion that the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be reversed. I also agree that there is no reason for this Court to explore difficult questions concerning § 5 of the Voting Rights Act in the absence of consideration by the courts below. Opinion of MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, MR. JUSTICE STEWART, and MR. JUSTICE POWELL join. I write separately to emphasize that the Court today is not presented with the question of whether the District Court erred in concluding that the form of government of the city of MARSHALL, J., dissenting 437 U.S. Dallas unconstitutionally diluted the voting power of black citizens. While this Court has found that the use of multimember districts in a state legislative apportionment plan may be invalid if "used invidiously to cancel out or minimize the voting strength of racial groups," White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755, 765 (1973), we have never had occasion to consider whether an analogue of this highly amorphous theory may be applied to municipal governments. Since petitioners did not preserve this issue on appeal, we need not today consider whether relevant constitutional distinctions may be drawn in this area between a state legislature and a municipal government. I write only to point out that the possibility of such distinctions has not been foreclosed by today's decision. MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN and MR. JUSTICE STEVENS join, dissenting. I agree with the majority's decision not to reach the Voting Rights Act question, since it was not presented to either of the courts below. I also agree with the analysis of our past decisions found in Part II of MR. JUSTICE WHITE's opinion. I cannot agree, however, that the actions of the Dallas City Council are distinguishable from those of the local governing body in East Carroll Parish School Bd. v. Marshall, 424 U. S. 636 (1976). I therefore conclude that the plan ordered by the District Court here must be evaluated in accordance with the federal common law of remedies applicable to judicially devised reapportionment plans. I In East Carroll Parish School Bd. v. Marshall, supra, suit against the parish (county) was initially brought by a white resident who claimed that population disparities among the wards of the parish unconstitutionally denied him an equal vote in elections for members of the school board and the police jury, the governing body of the parish. Following a 535 MARSHALL, J., dissenting finding of unconstitutionality, the District Court adopted a plan submitted by the police jury, which called for at-large elections of both bodies. Two years later (after the 1970 census), in response to the court's direction, the at-large plan was resubmitted by the police jury. Respondent Marshall then intervened, arguing that the at-large elections would dilute the Negro vote in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The District Court again accepted the police jury plan, but the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that multimember districts were unconstitutional. Although we did not reach the constitutional ground relied on by the Court of Appeals, we sustained its judgment. We concluded that the District Court had abused its equitable discretion in not requiring the division of the parish into singlemember wards: "We have frequently reaffirmed the rule that when United States district courts are put to the task of fashioning reapportionment plans to supplant concededly invalid state legislation, single-member districts are to be preferred absent unusual circumstances." 424 U. S., at 639. It is plain from the foregoing that we treated the plan submitted by the local legislative body in East Carroll as a judicially devised plan, to which the federal common law of remedies developed in reapportionment cases was applicable. It is equally plain that we did not treat the police jury's submission as a "legislatively enacted" plan, which would only have had to meet the strictures of the Constitution and would not necessarily have been subject to evaluation under the more stringent standards applicable to court-devised plans. See Connor v. Finch, 431 U. S. 407, 414-415 (1977). Indeed, in rejecting the argument of the United States (appearing as amicus curiae) that the East Carroll plan was subject to the preclearance procedure of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we expressly noted that the police jury "did not have the authority to reapportion itself," and that the plan, though sub |