High court will hear a new voting rights case

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is wading back into the issue of voting rights.

The justices agreed Monday to decide whether Alabama violated the Constitution by allegedly packing black voters into some state legislative districts, making it more difficult for black office-seekers to be elected elsewhere.

The case comes a year after the court, in another Alabama case, struck down a key section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that was used by the federal government to monitor states with a history of discrimination. Alabama was one of those states.

That 2013 decision freed states and municipalities with a history of racial discrimination from having to clear changes in voting procedures with the federal government. The restriction had applied to nine states and parts of six others, mostly in the South. Congress is wrestling with a formula to replace the one struck down, but passage is unlikely.

Ironically, the Voting Rights Act was intended in part to guarantee that the political power of black voters was not diluted in order to deny them a fair shot at electing African Americans to office. The new case asks whether Alabama effectively did the opposite by giving blacks larger super-majorities than required in some districts, thereby limiting their impact elsewhere.

A three-judge federal court ruled 2-1 in December that district lines approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2012 were constitutional. Under the GOP plan, 28 of 105 House districts and eight of 35 Senate districts emerged with a black majority. The state's primary elections are being held Tuesday using those district lines.

Separate challenges to that ruling were brought by the Alabama Democratic Conference and the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus. The justices agreed to combine the cases, which will be heard in the 2014 term beginning in October.