Supreme Court faces landmark challenge on voting rights
By John Kruzel - 03/01/21 06:22 PM EST The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday over a set of Arizona voting restrictions alleged to be racially discriminatory in a dispute that could set the most important voting rights precedent in nearly a decade.
A potentially landmark ruling in the coming months may determine whether a suite of voting curbs working their way through GOP state legislatures across the country will survive legal scrutiny before the pivotal 2022 midterms and the next race for the White House.
For the 6-3 conservative-majority court, the case marks a first chance to define the sweep of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). That provision, Section 2, makes it illegal to enact laws that place an unequal burden on the franchise of racial minorities.
Civil rights groups say it’s crucial that the justices use the Arizona case to give a robust reading to Section 2 in light of a past Supreme Court ruling that narrowed safeguards for minority voters.
“It is imperative that this Court continue to construe Section 2 expansively, as Congress intended,†the NAACP Legal Defense Fund wrote in an amicus brief.
Such a ruling, the group said, is the only way to fulfill the law’s “original purpose of ridding the political process of racial discrimination.â€
more
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/541107-supreme-court-faces-landmark-challenge-on-voting-rights