The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared ready to gut a key tool of the Voting Rights Act that has helped root out racial discrimination in voting for more than a half century, a change that would boost Republican electoral prospects, particularly across the South.

Associated Press reporter Gary Fields was inside the Supreme Court, listening up close to two and a half hours of arguments.

"I arrived here this morning and was surprised about the size of the crowd that was already here that were chanting, that were talking, that had signs, almost a festive atmosphere," said Fields.

During the arguments, the court’s six conservative justices appeared inclined to strike down a Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana, arguing it relied too heavily on race.

When attorney Edward Greim suggested that the discrimination was not intentional, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed back, challenging the idea that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act only addresses intentional discrimination.

“So how do you define intentional and is there any other way to bring a case if we don't have intentional discrimination and have a showing of that and what does that do to future plaintiffs?" Added Fields.

Such an outcome would mark a fundamental change in the 1965 voting rights law, the centerpiece legislation of the Civil Rights Movement, that succeeded in opening the ballot box to Black Americans and reducing persistent discrimination in voting.