Fifty-three years later, Chief Justice John Roberts looked directly at a similar situation where county commissioners in Alabama had annexed plot after plot, redrew boundaries, diluted the voting strength of black voters, and, this time, did so in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Unlike before, however, the Supreme Court, in a 5–4, decision, ignored all the evidence and drew instead upon the arguments hurled against the VRA since 1966. Refrains about states’ rights, black electoral success, regional discrimination, the end of racism, and the seeming calcification of the VRA became the key
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