The new date is Oct 4, 2022.
The justices heard arguments on Alabama's voting map but gave no clues as to whether they would strike down the Voting Rights Act.
The Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts escorted Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to her formal investiture ceremony at the Supreme Court.
The constitutionality of Alabama's redrawn congressional map, which only has one majority-Black district and was struck down by a lower court as being racially discrimination, was one of the cases the Supreme Court heard Tuesday.
The court will determine whether the map drawn by the state's Republican politicians violates section two of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices that are racially discrimination.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who just joined the court this term, sharply criticized Alabama Solicitor General Edmund LaCour, who claimed the state's initial map was "race neutral" and thus not discrimination, saying his premise was false and that race has "already infused the voting system"
Jackson challenged the state's claim that an alternate map favored by the challengers would violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection rights by relying too heavily on race.
The case is a slam dunk that the map violates the Voting Rights Act and the state is asking us to cut back substantially.
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito took a more sympathetic position toward Alabama's position, while Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas asked technical questions that were not clear how they could rule.
27% of the votes were cast. A state-drawn voting map would result in only one of seven congressional districts being made up of mostly black voters, according to the state government.
The case will be decided by the Supreme Court in the near future. The court ruled in February that Alabama should use the map the Republican legislature drew, which means that one will be in place for the election. While the court gave little signal Tuesday on how it will rule, a majority of justices ruled in February to freeze the state's new court-ordered voting map that had two majority-Black congressional districts. Multiple justices would have to change their minds for the map to be struck down. The second case is related to the constitutionality of North Carolina's maps and could have a big impact on states' power to run elections.
In January, Alabama asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on the constitutionality of its congressional map, which was struck down by a three-judge panel in a lower court. The state-drawn congressional map was argued to have hurt the voting power of Black residents by placing them in more than one district. The Alabama dispute is one of many battles that have played out as states redrew their maps to reflect the 2020 census, including legal tussles in such states as Florida, Georgia and Louisiana, where the Supreme Court similarly stepped in to allow the state to use a map that a lower court had Voting rights advocates fear the effects of the Supreme Court weighing in on section two of the Voting Rights Act because it already dismantled a different part of the law in 2013). A provision that required states to get preclearance from the federal government before changing voting laws wasnixed by that ruling.
The Voting Rights Act has been struck down by the Supreme Court. The next blow may be this case. It's calledPolitico.
The Voting Rights Act is on the verge of being killed by the Supreme court.
The congressional map of Alabama was thrown out by the lower court due to its racial composition.
The Voting Rights Act is in danger of being dismantled by the Supreme Court.
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