1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Redistricting and Voter Protection Act of 2017 . 2. Requiring declaratory judgment or preclearance as prerequisite for multiple Congressional redistricting plans enacted pursuant to same decennial census and apportionment of Representatives (a) Declaratory Judgment that Plan Does Not Deny or Abridge Right To Vote on Account of Race or Color Except as provided in subsection (b), after a State enacts a Congressional redistricting plan in the manner provided by law after an apportionment of Representatives under section 22(a) of the Act entitled An Act to provide for the fifteenth and subsequent decennial censuses and to provide for an apportionment of Representatives in Congress , approved June 18, 1929 ( 2 U.S.C. 2a ), any subsequent Congressional redistricting plan enacted by the State prior to the next apportionment of Representatives under such section shall not take effect unless and until— (1) the State commences a civil action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for a declaratory judgment that such subsequent plan neither has the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color, or in contravention of the guarantees set forth in section 4(f)(2) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ( 52 U.S.C. 10303(f)(2) ); and (2) the court enters such a declaratory judgment. (b) Preclearance A subsequent Congressional redistricting plan described in subsection (a) may take effect if— (1) the chief legal officer or other appropriate official of the State involved submits the plan to the Attorney General and the Attorney General has not interposed an objection within 60 days of such submission