The U.S. Supreme Court weakened but did not eliminate a key provision of the Voting Rights Act on Wednesday, making it harder to bring voter discrimination claims against electoral maps while stopping short of a widely anticipated full strikedown.
The ruling will likely help Texas in its yearslong litigation over the electoral maps lawmakers drew in 2021, and opens the door to the state creating even more aggressively partisan maps going forward.
The 6-3 decision narrows how courts may interpret Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the seminal civil rights legislation signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. This provision, seen as the cornerstone of the law, outlaws practices denying or abridging the right of any citizen to vote based on their race, including political maps that dilute the electoral power of voters of color.
