Joe.My.God. LGBT News
NPR reports:
A federal appeals court has struck down a key path for enforcing the Voting Rights Act. The new ruling in an Arkansas redistricting lawsuit may set up the next U.S. Supreme Court fight that could further limit the reach of the Voting Rights Act’s protections for people of color. The legal dispute is focused on who is allowed to sue to try to enforce key provisions under Section 2 of the landmark civil rights law, which was first passed in 1965.
U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, however, ruled in February 2022 that only the head of the Justice Department, the U.S. attorney general, can bring Section 2 lawsuits and dismissed an Arkansas redistricting case brought by advocacy groups representing Black voters in the state. On Monday, that lower court ruling was upheld in a 2-1 vote by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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1/ The 8th Circuit has gutted the last remnants of the Voting Rights Act, ruling that only the gov’t can bring challenges under Sec 2. That means that in a future GOP admin with DOJ out of the picture, private parties couldn’t bring challenges. https://t.co/ugAFBGh6Jd
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) November 20, 2023
2/ That would mean, for instance, that the successful challenges we’ve seen to racially motivated gerrymanders since the 2020 census wouldn’t happen. This ruling now goes on appeal to SCOTUS.
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) November 20, 2023