Supreme Court sends Native American voting-rights case back for review

Summary

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sent a closely watched Voting Rights Act dispute involving Native American voters back to lower courts, directing them to reconsider a ruling after the high court issued another decision that weakened parts of the Civil Rights-era law.

In the North Dakota case, brought by two Native American tribes, an appeals court had ruled that only the federal government can sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act’s protections. The Supreme Court said the ruling needs reconsideration and ordered lower courts to take another look at the decision that had gone against the tribes and undercut a key enforcement mechanism.

The enforcement mechanism at issue involves lawsuits filed by voters and advocacy groups, which have brought most of the cases under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, according to the Supreme Court’s description of how the law has been used. By contrast, the appeals court had limited enforcement authority to federal government plaintiffs.

The Supreme Court blocked that appeals court decision in July, allowing the tribes’ preferred election maps to temporarily stay in place while the justices considered the case. On Monday, the court again intervened, ordering further review rather than leaving the restrictive interpretation in effect.

Lenny Powell, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, said the Supreme Court’s action was the right call. He said he would “keep fighting to ensure that Native voters have the ability to vote and effect change in their communities.”

The Supreme Court also sent back another case tied to the same enforcement issue, where Mississippi made a similar argument about who may bring claims in a dispute over its state legislative map. The court’s Monday action jeopardizes three new majority-Black state legislative districts, but Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said the effects likely would not be felt until 2027.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from both decisions, saying she would have left the Mississippi ruling in place and fully reversed the North Dakota decision. The court’s move lands after the conservative majority already diluted Voting Rights Act enforcement power in an April ruling striking down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana and setting a difficult standard for future claims.

In that earlier case, the high court majority said the map relied too heavily on race and that future Voting Rights Act claims would be harder to win unless they satisfy the court’s approach to how discrimination must be shown. The Monday order keeps the North Dakota dispute alive while lowering courts reconsider whether the Section 2 enforcement pathway has been restricted beyond precedent.

As the lower courts revisit the questions raised in the Supreme Court’s order, the practical impact for election map challenges will depend on how the courts treat who can sue under Section 2 and what evidence will be required after the court’s April narrowing of Voting Rights Act claims. MSI previously reported that the Supreme Court’s April decision made future Voting Rights Act cases harder to win.