Stakes are high for voting rights as Supreme Court again tackles Louisiana redistricting dispute

The Supreme Court's conservative majority could use the Louisiana redistricting case to further weaken the landmark Voting Rights Act.

WASHINGTON — The way Louisiana’s Republican leaders put it, the pervasive racial discrimination in elections that led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is all in the past.

That is why they are now urging the Supreme Court, in a case being argued on Wednesday, to bar states from using any consideration of race when drawing legislative districts, gutting a key plank of the law that was designed to ensure Black voters would have a chance of electing their preferred candidates.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told NBC News that the Voting Rights Act was designed to address blatantly discriminatory policies and practices that prevented Black people and other minorities from voting decades ago.

“I think the question now is, have we gotten to a point where those obstacles really don’t exist anymore?” she said. “I don’t think they exist in Louisiana,” she added.

At issue is a congressional district map that Louisiana grudgingly redrew last year after being sued under the Voting Rights Act to ensure that there were two majority-Black districts. The original map only had one in a state where a third of the population is Black, according to the U.S. census.