The U.S. Supreme Court, which twice in the last decade has struck down or neutered provisions of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, may well be poised to do it again. On Tuesday the conservative court heard arguments in a case that could further decimate the law, passed in 1965, and twice renewed by Congress to protect racial minorities from discrimination in voting.
At issue in Tuesday’s case was Alabama’s congressional redistricting plan, adopted by the Republican state legislature after the 2020 Census. More than a quarter of the state’s population is African American, but in only 1 of 7 districts do minority voters have a realistic chance of electing the candidate of their choice. In January, a three-judge federal court panel that included two Trump appointees ruled unanimously that under the Voting Rights Act, Alabama should create not just one, but two compact congressional districts with a majority or close to a majority of Black voters.
The state appealed to the Supreme Court, where on Tuesday Alabama Solicitor General Edmund LaCour, Jr. contended that unless there is evidence of intentional race discrimination, congressional districts must be drawn without considerations of race.
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