Republicans are increasingly bullish they can whittle away at the Voting Rights Act (VRA) as Democrats renew a long-shot effort to broaden the landmark law that turns 60 next week.

The Supreme Court could become the arbiter of Republicans’ efforts, with a major Louisiana redistricting battle set for rehearing next term and other battles bubbling up in the lower courts.

The conservative-majority high court has already eviscerated significant parts of the VRA, but the new legal fronts could reshape decades-long precedent of legal battles over political power.

“There are clouds around, and a lot of them are circling the Supreme Court at the moment,” said Adriel Cepeda Derieux, the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Voting Rights Project.

With Democrats viewing the law as under siege from federal court rulings, a group of Democratic senators reintroduced a bill Tuesday that would restore and expand protections of the VRA.

The legislation would reimpose the VRA’s requirement struck down in 2013 by the Supreme Court that jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory practices receive federal approval before changing their voting laws; prevent voters from being purged from voter rolls if they haven’t voted recently; and add protections for poll workers against threats and intimidation.

“Voting rights are preservative of all other rights,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said at a press conference announcing the bill’s reintroduction. “The democracy is the very house in which we live. It is the framework in which we get to fight for the things that we care about.”

But the bill faces long odds in a Republican-controlled Congress and could face constitutional challenges, if ever enacted.

Meanwhile, Republicans have set their sights on weakening the VRA by preventing voters and private........

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