Supreme Court tossed out heart of Voting Rights Act a decade ago, prompting wave of new voting rules

ATLANTA (AP) — Within hours of a U.S. Supreme Court decision dismantling a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Texas lawmakers announced plans to implement a strict voter ID law that had been blocked by a federal court. Lawmakers in Alabama said they would press forward with a similar law that had been on hold

The ruling continues to reverberate across the country a decade later, as Republican-led states pass voting restrictions that, in several cases, would have been subject to federal review had the conservative-leaning court left the provision intact. At the same time, the justices have continued to take other cases challenging elements of the landmark 1965 law that was born from the sometimes violent struggle for the right of Black Americans to cast ballots.

The justices are expected to rule in the coming weeks in a new case out of Alabama that could make it much more difficult for minority groups to sue over gerrymandered political maps that dilute their representation.

"At that point, you have to ask yourself what's left of the Voting Rights Act?" said Franita Tolson, a constitutional and election law expert and co-dean of the University of Southern California School of Law.

Core parts of the law have been reauthorized with bipartisan support five times since it was signed by then-president Lyndon Johnson, the most recent in 2006. But congressional efforts to address the enforcement gap created by the June 2013 Supreme Court decision on what was known as pre-clearance — federal review of proposed election-related changes before they could take effect — have languished amid increasingly partisan battles over the ballot box.

The recent wave of voting changes has been pushed by Republican lawmakers who point to concerns over elections that have been fueled by former President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

At least 104 restrictive voting laws have passed in 33 mostly GOP-controlled states since the 2020 election, according to an analysis by the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks voting legislation in the states.