00:04Voting rights advocates rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday
00:08as the nine justices heard arguments challenging a key provision of the Voting Rights Act,
00:14the landmark civil rights law that prevents racial discrimination in voting.
00:19This case is about the black and the brown.
00:23This case is about the people whose voices, votes, and very vitality stand and hang in the balance.
00:30The case involves the composition of electoral districts in Louisiana
00:34where black people make up roughly a third of the population.
00:37During oral arguments, the conservative justices signaled their willingness to undercut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,
00:45which prohibits electoral maps that would result in diluting the power of minority voters,
00:50even without direct proof of racist intent.
00:54Here's conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
00:57This court's cases, in a variety of contexts, have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time,
01:07sometimes for a long period of time, decades in some cases, but that they should not be indefinite and should have an end point.
01:19A group of black voters appealed the lower court's finding that a voting map that added a second black majority congressional district in Louisiana was guided too much by racial considerations,
01:31in violation of the constitutional promise of equal protection under the law.
01:36Lawmakers are allowed to draw maps to favor their own political parties and protect politicians already in office,
01:43known in the U.S. system as incumbents.
01:45Conservative Justice Samuel Alito pressed this point.
01:49Isn't seeking partisan advantage also an objective that a legislature may legitimately seek?
01:58The attorney for the black voters, Janae Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,
02:04said that is not true if the partisan line drawing comes at the cost of the equal protection principle.
02:10Liberal Justice Elena Kagan tried to focus the arguments on the real-world impact of a decision gutting Section 2.
02:18Kagan asked Nelson what would happen if Section 2 ceased to operate to prevent vote dilution in redistricting.
02:25I think the results would be pretty catastrophic.
02:28The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, is expected to make its ruling in June.
02:34The court was a 10-2011 and was Crowley.
02:36The court and the court was a 12-2011, as he said,
02:41who will not be the position of states of state's own attention,
02:43the court and the court would not be the position of states and the court.
02:44But in this case the court will be the same one of the laws.
02:45The court was a 17-22-127, and the court-Ù†ate dynasty.
02:46The court has just been a 21-227 that's become a 12-25-2011,
02:51which was a 14-237, and at 14-238, and at 14-258,
02:54which was a 15-8-16-2011.
02:55The court will be the same as about a 19-22-2011.
02:58The court was the sure which was the jours at the court,
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