The Supreme Court's conservative justices led a sustained attack Wednesday on a key element of the Voting Rights Act, questioning whether one-time bastions of segregation still should be held to account for past discrimination.

The justices who were skeptical of that part of the voting rights law included Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose views are likely to prevail on the closely divided court. He tends to side with his more conservative colleagues on matters of race.

On the other side, the liberal justices defended Congress' decision to keep the law in place to prevent ongoing discrimination.

The law requires all or parts of 16 states, mainly in the South, with a history of discrimination in voting to get approval in advance of making changes in the way elections are conducted. The idea behind it is to prevent discriminatory measures from being put in place.

There have been numerous instances of voter suppression throughout out the South, including all they way up to the 2008 election.  The Voting Rights Act is an effective tool in the fight to end racial discrimination.  However, Republican political calculations take precedent over voting rights time and again.  For all the legitimate discussion of how crazy Republicans have become, they can still do math. 

It is a fact that African-Americans and Latinos are Democrats by large percentages.  They are also more likely to be of a lower socio-economic stratus.  Therefore, any effort to add another hoop to jump through before you are actually allowed to vote will disproportionally exclude minorities.  I do not believe every Republican in the South is a racist.  I do believe that they use race as a means to get less Democratic voters from showing up at the polls.  It will be a dark day for equality and democracy if a divided Supreme Court declares unconstitutional a law 40 plus years old that was pushed by both John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.