The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared ready to limit how a key part of the Voting Rights Act long aimed at protecting equal opportunity for racial minority voters is applied to the drawing of state election maps. During oral arguments in a complicated case challenging the drawing of a second majority-black district in Louisiana, the court’s conservative majority suggested race may have improperly predominated as a factor in its creation. At the same time, it was not clear whether a majority of the court was prepared to issue a more sweeping ruling that any use of race as a factor in redistricting is unconstitutional. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has long been a guardrail against states "packing" Black voters into districts and "cracking" communities of color into other districts wi

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