Supreme Court sends voting rights case back to lower court
AP News • • nation
Key Points:
- The Supreme Court has ordered lower courts to reconsider rulings that limited voter and advocacy group lawsuits under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, following a case brought by Native American tribes in North Dakota.
- The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that only the federal government can sue to enforce Section 2, a decision that conflicted with decades of precedent and was temporarily blocked by the Supreme Court in July.
- The Supreme Court also sent back a related case involving Mississippi’s state legislative map, which threatens three new majority-Black districts, with potential impacts not expected until 2027.
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, arguing both decisions should have been reversed, while the conservative majority has recently narrowed Voting Rights Act enforcement by raising the standard for proving racial discrimination in district maps.