US Supreme Court curbs key Voting Rights Act provision in 6–3 conservative majority ruling

In a big victory for Lousiana Republicans and President Donald Trump's administration, the Supreme Court of the United States has curbed the Voting Rights Act, curbing the rights of the minorities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under the landmark civil rights law. In a 6-3 ruling, the court effectively struck down an electoral map that gave

.

The ruling was authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by his five fellow conservative justices.

The court's three liberal justices and some legal experts denounced the decision as hollowing out Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which Congress enacted to bar electoral maps that would result in diluting the clout of minority voters.

The ruling comes amid a nationwide fight between Republican- and Democratic-led states over redrawing electoral maps. The tussle continues between Republicans and Democrats to gain political advantage before the November congressional elections.

Donald Trump and Republicans are aiming to keep their narrow majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. It is likely that some states try to enact new maps, Reuters quoted some legal experts as saying,

Louisiana has a primary election set for May 16.

What judges said

In his judgment, Judge Samuel Alito wrote that the focus of Section 2 must now be to enforce the Constitution's prohibition on intentional racial discrimination under the 15th Amendment. He said, “Only when understood this way does (Section 2) of the Voting Rights Act properly fit within Congress's 15th Amendment enforcement power.”

The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870 following the US Civil War, gave powet to the Congress to pass laws to ensure the right to vote is not denied “on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.”

Interpreting Section 2 to "outlaw a map solely because it fails to provide a sufficient number of majority-minority districts would create a right that the amendment does not protect," Alito added.

Justice Elena Kagan authored a dissent joined by the two other liberal justices. Kagan said the ruling rendered the Voting Rights Act "all but a dead letter." The consequences, Kagan said, would be "grave."

"Under the court's new view of Section 2, a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens' voting power," Kagan wrote in her dissent. "Of course, the majority does not announce today’s holding that way. Its opinion is understated, even antiseptic. The majority claims only to be 'updating' our Section 2 law, as though through a few technical tweaks."

"But in fact, those 'updates' eviscerate the law, so that it will not remedy even the classic example of vote dilution given above," she added.

(With Reuters inputs)