As the Supreme Court continued adjusting the way lower courts handle Voting Rights Act challenges, it on Monday sent a closely watched case brought by Native American tribes back for reconsideration. The justices said a ruling against the tribes needed to be rethought in light of a Supreme Court decision that weakened the Civil Rights-era law and limited a key enforcement pathway.
The case stems from litigation in North Dakota brought by two Native American tribes. According to the Associated Press, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had held that only the federal government could sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act, a conclusion that the Supreme Court said conflicted with decades of case law. The Supreme Court blocked that appeals-court ruling in July, allowing the tribes’ preferred election maps to stay in place while the legal dispute continued.
The Supreme Court’s Monday order directed lower courts to take another look at the earlier decision that went against the tribes. The Associated Press reported that the underlying issue was how enforcement works when voters and advocacy groups bring lawsuits under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the provision that has been central to many Voting Rights Act challenges.
Lenny Powell, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, said in response to the Supreme Court’s action that “tossing out the appeals court ruling was the right call.” He also said he would “keep fighting to ensure that Native voters have the ability to vote and effect change in their communities,” according to the Associated Press account.
The Supreme Court’s orders also touched a broader Voting Rights Act landscape that has been shifting after the court’s April decision in a Louisiana case. In that April ruling, the court struck down a majority Black congressional district and, as described by the Associated Press, effectively limited Voting Rights claims to maps that are intentionally designed to discriminate MSI previously reported.
Associated Press reported that the appeals court’s approach in the North Dakota case has been cited in other litigation, including an appeal over Mississippi’s state legislative map. On Monday, the Supreme Court sent that Mississippi case back for reconsideration as well, and it said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from both orders.
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the Associated Press that the Monday decision could jeopardize three new majority-Black state legislative districts. He said the effects likely would not be felt until 2027, according to the report.
For now, the Supreme Court’s decision leaves open how lower courts will apply the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2 enforcement provisions in cases that challenge election maps, particularly where courts have questioned who can bring enforcement suits. With the justices ordering reconsideration, litigation in multiple states is expected to continue as the legal standards are tested again in the post-April environment.