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| Supreme Court Gives the Voting Rights Act a Tenuous New Lease on Life | Supreme Court Gives the Voting Rights Act a Tenuous New Lease on Life |
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| The Supreme Court’s surprising decision on Thursday to effectively reaffirm the remaining powers of the 1965 Voting Rights Act has halted, at least for the foreseeable future, the slide toward irrelevance of a landmark civil rights law that reshaped American politics. | The Supreme Court’s surprising decision on Thursday to effectively reaffirm the remaining powers of the 1965 Voting Rights Act has halted, at least for the foreseeable future, the slide toward irrelevance of a landmark civil rights law that reshaped American politics. |
| In 2013, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote an opinion that effectively gutted the heart of the act, a provision that gave the Justice Department a veto over changes in election procedures in states with histories of racial bias in elections. Two years ago, an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito greatly weakened the law’s authority over polling rules that reduced the clout of minority voters. | In 2013, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote an opinion that effectively gutted the heart of the act, a provision that gave the Justice Department a veto over changes in election procedures in states with histories of racial bias in elections. Two years ago, an opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito greatly weakened the law’s authority over polling rules that reduced the clout of minority voters. |
| Supporters of the act expected the court to take an ax to the law’s chief remaining authority, over political maps, in the latest case, Allen v. Milligan — a suit charging that Alabama had drawn its seven congressional districts to illegally limit Black voters’ influence to a single House seat. | Supporters of the act expected the court to take an ax to the law’s chief remaining authority, over political maps, in the latest case, Allen v. Milligan — a suit charging that Alabama had drawn its seven congressional districts to illegally limit Black voters’ influence to a single House seat. |
| Instead, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 ruling, reaffirmed the law’s authority over racially biased maps and the arcane structure of legal precedents and court tests that underpin it. | Instead, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority in a 5-to-4 ruling, reaffirmed the law’s authority over racially biased maps and the arcane structure of legal precedents and court tests that underpin it. |
| Chief Justice Roberts and a second conservative justice, Brett Kavanaugh, indicated that though they joined the majority in this case, they still harbored reservations about the law, and in a court that has been willing to toss out precedents, a one-vote majority may be a slim reed. Even so, voting-rights advocates said the court’s unexpected turn — and particularly the support from Chief Justice Roberts, a longtime skeptic of the Voting Rights Act — was heartening. | |
| The act “is hanging by a thread, and that thread’s name is probably John Roberts,” said Bryan L. Sells, a Georgia lawyer who was a special litigator of voting-rights cases in the Justice Department from 2010 to 2015. |