Observers predict changes to the Voting Rights Act of 1965

WASHINGTON — Thinking about how the U.S. Supreme Court will handle the Louisiana case that could reshape the Voting Rights Act, the crowning legislative achievement of the civil rights era, Southern University political science professor Albert Samuels says he can't help but think back.

Out of Louisiana, he noted, came the litigation that helped end Reconstruction laws protecting the formerly enslaved, the "grandfather clause" that kept Blacks from registering to vote and the landmark Plessy case, which enshrined Jim Crow laws limiting African American opportunities.

“Ironically, it’s Louisiana at the center of this again,” Samuels said after listening to the 2½-hour Supreme Court hearing Wednesday over whether the state Legislature — relying on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Ac