![]() The decision Thursday came as a surprise in part because the Roberts court has repeatedly chipped away at the Voting Rights Act, the landmark law passed in the wake of civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s. The court’s other conservatives - Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett - dissented. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh also joined most of Roberts’ opinion. "t does a disservice to Black Alabamians who under that precedent have had their electoral power diminished-in violation of a law this Court once knew to buttress all of American democracy," wrote dissenting Justice Elena Kagan.The decision featured an unusual ideological breakdown: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court’s majority opinion, joined by the court’s liberal bloc - Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Roberts and three liberal justices dissented. ![]() As a preliminary matter, earlier this month, the justices paused a lower-court ruling that the maps put Black voters in Alabama at a disadvantage. The court has already agreed to hear another case next term involving the scope of Section 2 and new maps in Alabama. Next up: electoral maps that could put Black voters at a disadvantage ![]() Then, in July 2021, the high court made it more difficult for people to sue under Section 2, which bars states from passing laws that result in "a denial or abridgement" on voters "on account of race or color," by requiring plaintiffs to show they'd shouldered a significant burden or faced other hurdles.Ĭharles, of Harvard Law School, said that ruling is a clear signal of how the Supreme Court will review future voting rights challenges. "Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions," Roberts wrote, pointing out the permanent ban on racial discrimination still exists in Section 2 of the law. But, he said, circumstances changed in recent decades, citing rising voter turnout among Black voters. "The reality is that we're in a period right now where things are in flux there is a new majority on the Supreme Court and defendants are throwing things out there to see what sticks," said Deuel Ross, senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, on a recent Election Law Blog podcast.Ĭhief Justice John Roberts wrote that the law imposed "extraordinary measures" to fight racial discrimination. The Arkansas case is the latest in a string of defeats for civil rights advocates, as conservative-leaning judges slowly dismantle key provisions of the law. Conservative-majority Supreme Court dumped reviews of ballot changes, made it harder to sue for racial discrimination "They are teeing up statutory and constitutional questions for the Court with the justifiable belief that the Court will welcome the narrow interpretation and the opportunity to further narrow the statute," said Guy-Uriel Charles, an election law professor at Harvard Law School. The Arkansas ruling followed comments made by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch only seven months ago in an unrelated case over the scope of the Voting Rights Act, where he expressed doubts about private rights to sue. Politics How The Voting Rights Act Came To Be And How It's Changed "Private individuals have brought cases under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to protect their right to vote for generations." "This ruling was so radical that there was no choice but to appeal it," said Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. The ACLU said the decision flouts decades of precedent and vowed to appeal. "Only the Attorney General of the United States can bring a case like this one," wrote Judge Lee Rudofsky. But the judge said he found no way for the outside advocates to proceed. The NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the maps diluted the power of Black voters. The latest blow to the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 came this week in Arkansas, where a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump dismissed a case over new statehouse maps. The nation's premier tool to protect voting rights is in mortal danger, threatened on multiple fronts by the Supreme Court and lower-ranking federal judges, scholars and civil rights advocates say. ![]() Voters wait in line to cast their ballots in the 2020 election on Nov.
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