Birmingham News: “Shelby County took its challenge of the Voting Rights Actto the U.S. Supreme Court today, asking the justices to declare part of the 1965 law an unfair burden on states such as Alabama where the federal government still oversees elections for evidence of racial discrimination. Shelby County is appealing two lower court decisions that upheld the constitutionality of the landmark civil rights-era law. If the Supreme Court justices agree to accept the case, they’ll schedule it for oral arguments sometime after they return in October, and it would be one of the highest-profile cases of the court’s 2012-13 term.”

You can find the cert. petition here.