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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