Supreme Court sends Native American voting rights decision back to lower court
WASHINGTON– The Supreme Court ruled Monday in a voting rights case brought by Native American tribes, saying a closely watched decision should be reconsidered after the high court weakened the civil rights-era law.
The justices ordered lower courts to review the ruling that went against the tribes and undermined a key enforcement mechanism: lawsuits brought by voters and advocacy groups.
They played a key role in enforcement, leading most of the lawsuits filed under provisions of the Voting Rights Act known as Section 2.
But in a case brought in North Dakota by two Native American tribes, the 8th U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that only the federal government could sue to enforce the law.
The decision contradicted decades of case law. The Supreme Court blocked it in July, allowing the tribes’ preferred maps to temporarily remain in place.
An attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, Lenny Powell, said dismissing the case was the right decision and pledged to “continue fighting to ensure Native voters have the opportunity to vote and make change in their communities.”
The appeals court’s conclusion has nevertheless been cited elsewhere, with Mississippi making a similar argument in another appeal regarding its state’s legislative map. The court also remanded that case for reconsideration on Monday. The decision puts three new majority-black legislative districts at risk, although the effects likely won’t be felt until 2027, said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from both decisions.
The conservative majority, meanwhile, has already diluted its enforcement power with its April ruling that invalidated a majority-black congressional district in Louisiana and made future cases much harder to win.
In that case, the high court’s conservative majority ruled that the map relied too heavily on race, with districting intended to give black voters a chance to elect the candidate of their choice. The ruling effectively limited voting rights claims to cards intentionally designed to discriminate, a very high standard.
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Associated Press writers Gary Fields and Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, contributed to this report.
