US Supreme Court invalidates electoral map that discriminates against black voters

He United States Supreme Court on Thursday invalidated a map of electoral districts approved by Republican lawmakers from Alabama, in the south of the country, accused of discriminating against black voters.

By a narrow majority of five judges out of nine, the temple of American law refused to further dismantle the 1965 civil rights law, much to the relief of minority advocacy groups.

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That rule, called Voting Rights Actwas adopted to prevent former segregationist states from disenfranchising African-Americans, but in recent years the Supreme Court has removed some of its content.

This case was perceived as a new attempt to weaken her.

Beyond the debate about the map, the state of Alabama he had tried to convince the highest court to change its case law, which prohibits diluting the vote of black voters by concentrating them in a limited number of constituencies to reduce their influence elsewhere.

By agreeing to deal with his appeal, the highest court seemed willing to agree with him.

However, the president of the court, john robertsruled for the majority that the “new approach” proposed by Alabama, which wanted to avoid racial criteria being taken into account in assessing the legality of electoral districting, “it is not convincing neither in theory nor in practice”.

During the hearing, the progressive judge elena kagan protested: “The Voting Rights Act is one of the great advances of our democracy (…) What will be left of it?”.

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The Constitution prohibits taking into account racial criteria to evaluate whether to cut constituencies to minimize the weight of black voters.

“The Supreme Court has rejected the Orwellian idea that it is inappropriate to consider racial criteria to determine the existence of racial discrimination”said davin rosborougha lawyer for the powerful civil rights organization ACLU, hailing “a great victory” for African-American voters.

Your decision “preserves the principle that in USA Every voter must be able to exercise the constitutional right to vote without being discriminated against.congratulated the secretary of Justice, Merrick Garland, in a statement.

“It’s a good thing for democracy”said on his side the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, from the chamber.

Specifically, the republican authorities of Alabama they must review a map drawn up in 2021 to distribute the seats in the House of Representatives.

In this division, black voters, who tend to vote for Democratic candidates, were in the majority in only one of the state’s seven constituencies, when they represent 27% of its population.

According to the decision of the Supreme Courtthe authorities will have to create a second constituency with a majority of African-American voters.

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Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.