A demonstrator carrying a sign that says “VOTING RIGHTS NOW” walks across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in 2022 in Washington, D.C.
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A panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down one of the key remaining ways of enforcing the federal Voting Rights Act in seven mainly Midwestern states.
For decades, private individuals and groups have brought the majority of lawsuits for enforcing the landmark law’s Section 2 protections against racial discrimination in the election process.
But in a 2-1 ruling released Wednesday, the three-judge panel found that Section 2 cannot be enforced by lawsuits from private parties under a separate federal statute known as Section 1983.
That statute gives individuals the right to sue state and local government officials for violating their civil rights. Section 1983 stems from the Ku Klux Klan Act that Congress passed after the Civil War to protect Black people in the South from white supremacist violence, and voting rights advocates have considered it an antidote to a controversial 2023 decision by a different federal appeals panel that made it harder to enforce Section 2 in the 8th Circuit.
That earlier panel found that Section 2 is not privately enforceable because the Voting Rights Act does not explicitly name private individuals and groups. Only the head of the Justice Department can bring these types of lawsuits, that panel concluded.
The majority of the panel that released Wednesday’s opinion came to the same conclusion.
“Because [the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2] does not unambiguously confer an individual right, the plaintiffs do not have a cause of action under [Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code] to enforce [Section 2] of the Act,” wrote Circuit Judge Raymond Gruender, who was nominated by former President George W. Bush and joined in the opinion by Circuit Judge Jonathan Kobes, a nominee of President Trump.
In a dissenting opinion, however, Chief Circuit Judge Steven Colloton, also a Bush nominee, pointed out the long history of private individuals and groups suing to enforce Section 2’s legal protections against any inequalities in the opportunities voters of color have to elect preferred candidates in districts where voting is racially polarized.
“Since 1982, private plaintiffs have brought more than 400 actions based on [Section 2] that have resulted in judicial decisions. The majority concludes that all of those cases should have been dismissed because [Section 2] of the Voting Rights Act does not confer a voting right,” Colloton wrote.
Under the current Trump administration, the Justice Department has stepped away from Section 2 cases that had begun during the Biden administration.
The 8th Circuit includes Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.
In a recent development, a North Dakota redistricting lawsuit filed by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and the Spirit Lake Tribe has brought attention to the issue of voting rights. These tribal nations challenged the state legislative voting districts map approved by North Dakota’s Republican-controlled legislature post the 2020 census, citing Section 1983 as the legal basis for their case.
The tribal nations argued that the redistricting lines drawn by state lawmakers in a racially polarized voting region of the state diminish the ability of Native American voters to elect candidates of their choice. Mark Gaber, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center representing the tribal nations, highlighted during a court hearing in October 2024 that the 2020 redistricting lines have resulted in the absence of Native American representation in the North Dakota state Senate for the first time in over 30 years.
A lower court ruled against the redistricting plan, citing a violation of Section 2 due to the weakening of the collective voting power of Native American voters in northeastern North Dakota. However, the state’s Republican secretary of state, Michael Howe, has appealed this ruling to the 8th Circuit, challenging the ability of private individuals and groups to bring such lawsuits under Section 1983.
This legal battle is part of a broader trend where Republican officials in various states have questioned the right of private parties to bring redistricting lawsuits under different sections of the Voting Rights Act. The potential implications of these challenges could pave the way for a significant showdown over voting rights at the Supreme Court, given the erosion of the law’s protections by the court’s conservative majority in recent years.
The unfolding legal landscape around voting rights issues underscores the importance of ongoing efforts to uphold and protect the integrity of the electoral process for all citizens.
This article was edited by Benjamin Swasey.
