Hansi Lawong

The Supreme Court appears inclined to further weaken the Voting Rights Act.

In places where voting is racially polarized, the landmark law has helped ensure districts are drawn in a way that gives racial minority voters a chance of electing their preferred candidates.

An NPR analysis has found the high court's decision in this case could affect 15 U.S.

House districts in the South that are currently represented by a black Democratic member of Congress.

Republican-led states may decide to keep some of these districts for partisan reasons, but losing a handful of those districts could fuel the largest ever drop in the number of black representatives in Congress.

For a century after the Civil War, that figure stayed in the single digits or at zero.

But since the Voting Rights Act became law, the number's grown to 63 black-represented districts today.

Anzi Luwong, NPR News.