ACLU attorneys representing Arkansas plaintiffs challenging the state’s legislative district maps asked a federal appellate court on Monday to rehear a case with national significance for the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 civil rights law.
In 2022, U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky of Little Rock issued a ruling that declared the plaintiffs — the NAACP and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, a local advocacy group — had no right to sue under the Voting Rights Act. In fact, Rudofsky said, only the federal Justice Department has that ability. Despite decades of precedent to the contrary, and despite showing some sympathy to the plaintiffs’ specific claims, Rudofsky said the Voting Rights Act does not actually allow private individuals or groups to bring challenges. (He didn’t rule on the merits of the underlying case.)
The plaintiffs appealed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. But to the dismay of voting rights advocates, a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit upheld Rudofsky’s decision in November. The panel was split, with Chief Judge Lavenski R. Smith — who is Black, and a George W. Bush appointee — dissenting.
Now the plaintiffs are asking for a rehearing of the case from the full 11-member court. The U.S. Supreme Court and the 8th Circuit have assumed a private right to action exists under the Voting Rights Act for almost 60 yeras, attorneys said in a petition filed with the court today. But “by a 2-1 vote, the divided panel abruptly fractured this line of unbroken preceden. … Its unprecedented decision gravely undermines “‘the most successful civil rights statute in the history of the Nation.’”
They continued:
The panel’s decision has created a circuit split on a vitally important issue regarding VRA enforcement. In doing so, it contravenes the hundreds of Section 2 cases brought by private plaintiffs that federal appeals courts have decided for almost six decades—including at least 12 at the Supreme Court and at least 18 in this Court since 1982.