“This ruling is a travesty for democracy,” said ACLU lawyer Sophia Lin Lakin.
a conservative three-judge panel on the United State’s most right-wing federal court struck down the primary enforcement mechanism of the Voting Rights Act in a ruling that experts are saying would be “catastrophic” for voting rights across the country if upheld.
In a 2-1 ruling, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that private litigants, like voting and civil rights groups, are not allowed to bring lawsuits challenging discriminatory practices in redistricting and election administration under Section 2 of the law. “Private right of action,” as it’s known, is the main way that the Voting Rights Act is enforced; for decades, civil rights groups have filed lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act to challenge gerrymandering and racist voter suppression efforts, particularly in the South. The ruling, then, would leave only the Justice Department to bring lawsuits when electoral maps or changes to election administration rules have discriminatory effects on voters.
Experts say the ruling will gut the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 law aimed at preventing racial discrimination in elections that Congress passed in a response to the civil rights movement’s widespread protests.
