U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Voting Rights Act

Bloomberg:

June 23 (Bloomberg) — Consensus is back at the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts — at least for a day.

Issuing perhaps the most highly anticipated ruling of its nine-month term yesterday, the justices voted 8-1 to avoid ruling on whether a central provision of the Voting Rights Act is constitutional. Roberts’s opinion for the court circumvented that issue by instead making it easier for some jurisdictions to change election procedures and district lines.

The compromise ruling comes from a court that has divided along ideological lines in the past two years on race, terrorism, campaign finance, abortion and the death penalty. The decision recalled Roberts’s first term in 2005-06, when the court ruled unanimously in an abortion case and Roberts spoke publicly about his desire for consensus.

I could go on at length about that one dissenting vote, however, a picture really is worth a thousand words.