Supreme Court Strikes Down Key Portion of Voting Rights Act

CNN:

A deeply divided Supreme Court has limited use of a key provision in the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, in effect invalidating the key enforcement provision that applies to all or parts of 15 states with past history of voter discrimination.

The case involved Section 5, which gives federal authorities open-ended oversight of states and localities with a history of voter discrimination. Any changes in voting laws and procedures in the covered areas — which include all or parts of 16 states — must be “pre-cleared” with Washington.

There will be more about this today, but we thought we’d give you the breaking news.