The Supreme Court appears ready to gut a key tool of the Voting Rights Act that's helped root out racial discrimination in voting for more than a half century.

 

Associated Press Supreme Court reporter Mark Sherman says such a change would boost Republican electoral prospects, particularly across the South.

 

“After two and a half hours of arguments, the Court's six conservative justices each seemed ready to strike down a congressional district in Louisiana that was drawn to elect or to give black voters in that district a chance to elect a candidate of their choosing,” Sherman said.

 

If that is the outcome, it would mark a fundamental change in the 1965 voting rights law that was the centerpiece legislation of the Civil Rights Movement.

 

The court's three liberal justices tried to keep the focus on the work that the Voting Rights Act has done in combating discrimination.

 

“Justice Sonia Sotomayor told a lawyer for the Trump administration that the administration's bottom line seemed to be to want to get rid of the provision of the act known as Section 2. The lawyer, Hashim Mooppan of the Justice Department, told the justice that that was not the administration's intent,” Sherman said.

 

The court is expected to rule by early summer in 2026.