WASHINGTON ¨C The U.S. ?Supreme Court on Wednesday gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act ¡ª making it harder for minorities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under the landmark civil rights law ¡ª in a victory for Louisiana Republicans and U.S. President Donald Trump¡¯s administration.
The court, in a 6 to 3 ruling powered by its conservative members, blocked an electoral map that had given Louisiana a second Black-majority U.S. congressional district. With November congressional elections looming, the decision could prompt Republican-led states to seek to redraw electoral maps in an effort to put U.S. House of Representatives seats considered safely Democratic at risk.
The court¡¯s liberal justices, civil rights leaders, Democratic lawmakers and some legal experts denounced the decision as severely undermining Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which Congress enacted to bar electoral maps that would result in diluting the influence of minority voters.
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