The Supreme Court is wading back into the issue of voting rights.
The justices agreed Monday to decide whether Alabama violated the Constitution by intentionally packing black voters into state legislative districts, making it more difficult for black office-seekers to be elected outside those districts.
The case comes a year after the court, in another Alabama case, struck down a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that was used by the federal government to monitor states with a history of discrimination. Alabama was one of those states.
That 2013 decision freed states and municipalities with a history of racial discrimination from having to clear changes in voting procedures with the federal government. The restriction had applied to nine states and parts of six others, mostly in the South. Congress is wrestling with a formula to replace the one struck down, but passage is unlikely.
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SOURCE: Richard Wolf
USA TODAY
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