SCOTUS orders lower courts to reexamine Voting Rights Act rulings in Mississippi and North Dakota

In a decision that could have significant implications for the electoral maps of several states, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) on Monday ordered lower courts to reexamine two major cases involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The cases involve allegations of vote dilution against the legislative maps of Mississippi and North Dakota.

The High Court did not review the cases in depth, but instead applied the GVR (grant, vacate and remand) procedure: it accepted the appeals, vacated the prior rulings and remanded both cases to the lower courts for reexamination applying the new, stricter standard on the use of race set forth in Louisiana v. Callais.

The move comes just weeks after the landmark ruling in Louisiana, where the court limited the predominant use of race in drawing voting districts, establishing a stricter standard for claims under the Voting Rights Act.

Race activists and federal judges impose districts by race

The Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP and a group of black voters filed a lawsuit in December 2022 against the state legislative redistricting plan approved after the 2020 census. They argued that the map "fractured" large cohesive black populations into several districts, diluting their voting power.

In July 2024, a three-judge federal panel of judges ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, declaring violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The court ordered the state legislature to correct the map, creating at least three new majority-black districts, two in the Senate and one in the House of Representatives, and contemplated holding special elections.

In another case in North Dakota, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, the Spirit Lake Tribe and three Native American voters sued the secretary of state over legislative redistricting approved in 2021, which reduced Indian-majority districts from three to just one in the northeastern part of the state. A district court initially ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, questioning the individuals' right to sue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

In both cases, the states questioned whether private citizens and organizations, such as the NAACP or Indian tribes, can sue directly to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, or whether that power lies exclusively with the Department of Justice (DoJ). This issue, known as a "private right of action," has divided the lower courts.

Jackson dissents alone defending racial claims

The new ruling is summary and unsigned. Leftist Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in both cases, arguing that the ruling in Callais did not directly address the question of the private enforceability of Section 2 and that there was no basis for overruling the earlier rulings. Jackson cited the precedent of Morse v. Republican Party of Virginia in 1996, which did recognize a private right of action.