The Nation : Rights Act Ruling Asked

The Reagan Administration has urged the Supreme Court to find that nothing in the 20-year-old Voting Rights Act permits federal judges to insist on election district boundaries that guarantee safe seats for blacks. In a friend-of-the-court brief involving several North Carolina state legislative districts, the Administration said “this is the first case” in which the high court will review a ruling that multi-member election districts violate a 1982 amendment to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Supreme Court will review in its next session a Jan. 27, 1984, decision by a three-judge federal court in North Carolina that invalidated nine legislative districts, contending they illegally diluted black voters’ political clout.