The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday stepped back from the brink of totally gutting the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.
By a vote of 5 to 4, a coalition of liberal and conservative justices essentially upheld the court’s 1986 decision requiring that in states where voting is racially polarized, the legislature must create the maximum number of majority Black or near-majority Black congressional districts, using traditional redistricting criteria.
The opinion was unexpected. On two previous occasions, the conservative court has acted to gut provisions of the Voting Rights Act, leaving the once-hailed milestone legislation now a hollowed out shell.
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