Chicken Fried Politics: “Can private groups and individuals who believe their electoral prospects are harmed by new political maps bring suit in federal court under the Voting Rights Act?
For more than 50 years, the answer to that question has been yes. But a federal judge in Arkansas has come down on the other side, saying that only the U.S. attorney general, not private parties, can bring lawsuits under the act.
The decision drew strong rebukes from voting rights advocates, who say that line of reasoning would drastically undercut the ability of minority voters to seek redress in federal court.
“It is farcical to think the [Voting Rights Act] could be consistently enforced without citizens having the right to bring suit to protect their voting rights,” said the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, one of the plaintiffs in the case, in a statement.
“The Court ruling would create a reality where state or local governments can violate voting rights … but citizens must wait and hope the federal government has the capacity and desire to intervene to enforce those rights.”
While the Biden administration has pledged to be active in pursuing voting rights cases, the record of the Trump Justice Department illustrates how lack of such desire might affect plaintiffs — in four years, it brought just one such suit, over selection of a school board in a South Dakota district with a large native population.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky – a member of the conservative Federalist Society appointed to the federal bench by Donald Trump – tees up a case that conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court could use to drastically limit lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act.”