Supreme Court to Decide Unanswered Voting Rights Question

The U.S. Supreme Court has granted cert in a case involving minority voting rights and the drawing of legislative boundaries.

The issue is whether the Voting Rights Act protects state legislative districts in which black voters make up less than half of the population, but have enough clout to elect black candidates, the Associated Press reports. The North Carolina Supreme Court has ruled the law does not apply to districts in which blacks are not a majority.

The Supreme Court hasn’t decided the issue in the case, Bartlett v. Strickland, in prior rulings on dilution of minority voting strength, SCOTUSblog reports. The cert petition (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog) says the court has expressly left the question open on five prior occasions. The issue “now divides at least five United States Courts of Appeals and two state supreme courts,” the petition says.