Supreme Court Takes Action on Voting Rights and Racial Gerrymandering.

The US Supreme Court upheld a provision of the Voting Rights Act requiring that in states where voting is racially polarized, the legislature must create the maximum number of majority Black or near-majority Black congressional districts, using traditional redistricting criteria. The decision was unexpected, as the conservative court has previously acted to gut provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The case was brought by Alabama, which argued that congressional districts must be drawn without considerations of race, but the court ruled that a racially polarized state must draw district lines that allow minority voters the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.