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Voting rights groups expect the ruling to be appealed in the US supreme court.
Photograph: Allison Bailey/REX/Shutterstock
Voting rights groups expect the ruling to be appealed in the US supreme court.
Photograph: Allison Bailey/REX/Shutterstock
The fight for democracyUS voting rights



COURT RULES THAT ONLY US GOVERNMENT CAN SUE TO ENFORCE VOTING RIGHTS ACT

Shock ruling from Republican-appointed appeals court prevents outside groups or
citizens seeking to enforce voting rights law


The fight for democracy is supported by

About this content
Rachel Leingang
Mon 20 Nov 2023 15.10 ESTLast modified on Mon 20 Nov 2023 17.00 EST
 * 
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A federal appeals court shocked voting rights groups on Monday with a ruling
that only the US government, not outside groups or citizens, could sue to
enforce the Voting Rights Act’s provisions.

The civil rights law, which outlaws racial discrimination as it relates to
voting, has typically been enforced by lawsuits from these groups, not by the
government itself. Now that the Republican-appointed eighth circuit court of
appeals has made the ruling by 2-1, this “private right of action” to enforce
Section 2 of the law is called into question.



The ruling stemmed from a case brought by the Arkansas State Conference NAACP
and Arkansas Public Policy Panel over new maps created during redistricting that
the two groups allege diluted the voting power of Black voters in the state.



While courts at all levels have allowed private claims seeking to enforce the
voting rights law for decades, this is an “assumption that rests of flimsy
footing”, the opinion written by Judge David Stras, who was appointed by Donald
Trump, said. The ruling dissected the law itself, finding it did not include
specific language that allows anyone aside from the attorney general to bring
enforcement action.

In a dissenting opinion, Chief Judge Lavenski Smith said that, though the courts
may not have directly addressed the idea of private parties trying to enforce
this law, it has repeatedly heard these cases, so it would follow that “existing
precedent that permits citizens to seek a judicial remedy”.

The ruling is not simply an esoteric question of law: it would dismantle the
primary mechanism voting rights groups use to protect against racial
discrimination in voting, often in the form of lawsuits challenging electoral
maps.

Voting rights groups expect the ruling will be appealed to the US supreme court.
The eighth circuit ruling applies to the states the circuit court covers:
Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Wendy Weiser, the vice-president for democracy at the Brennan Center for
Justice, called the decision “radical” and wrote on X that it was “deeply wrong,
and it goes against decades of precedent and practice”.

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