Voting Rights Act faces a near-death experience at US Supreme Court

WASHINGTON: The Voting Rights Act, a landmark law barring discrimination in voting, was a product of the U.S. civil rights era, sought by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther King, passed by Congress and signed by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

Six decades later, it faces its greatest threat, with the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, looking poised to hollow out one key section after gutting a different one in 2013.

The court is expected to rule in the coming months in a case argued on Wednesday concerning a map delineating U.S. House of Representatives districts in Louisiana. The conservative justices signaled they could undercut the law’s Section 2, which bars voting maps that would result in diluting the voting power of minorities, even without direct proof of racist intent.

In doing so, the court would not be striking down the Voting Rights Act. But the question is what will be left of the law after the court issues its decision.

“If the court further weakens Section 2, states and localities, including those with long histories of discrimination, could be free to draw maps that systematically silence Black, Latino, Native and Asian American voters,” said Sarah Brannon, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project.

Black people make up about a third of the population in Louisiana, and white people make up a majority. The state has six U.S. House districts. Louisiana’s Republican-led legislature added a second Black-majority district in response to a judge’s ruling that an earlier map it had approved containing just one Black-majority district likely harmed Black voters in violation of Section 2.