The Supreme Court issued a major ruling Wednesday preserving but tightening the use of the Voting Rights Act, saying states should be more careful when they draw districts intended to boost the voting

WASHINGTON - The US Supreme Court limited the ability of lawmakers to take the racial make-up of a state into account when drawing voting maps, in a ruling that could reshape politics across the American south. In a 6-3 decision, the conservative justices sided with a challenge to new districts in Louisiana that were created to comply with a landmark Civil Rights law meant to protect black Americans from racial discrimination. The way courts have previously interpreted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court's majority opinion, has sometimes forced states "to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids". The group of mainly white voters challenging the law had argued that relying on race to create districts ran afoul of the US Constitution and suggested that the provision of the Voting Rights Act should be found unconstitutional in its entirety. The court majority did not take that position, but its decision will make it significantly more difficult…