Voters in Seven States Lose Right to Fight for Fair Representation, Native Americans Silenced in North Dakota

St. Paul, MN — In a stunningly antidemocratic move, voters in seven states in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit are now unable to sue to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act’s (VRA) ban on racial discrimination.

This is a loss for Native American voters in North Dakota who have been fighting for a fair map since 2021, and it sets a dangerous precedent for other voters across the country whose voices would otherwise be silenced without the ability to fight for a responsive government.

“This decision severely undermines the Voting Rights Act and is contrary to both the intent of Congress in enacting the law and to decades of Supreme Court precedent affirming voters’ power to enforce the law in court,” said Mark Gaber, senior director for redistricting at Campaign Legal Center. “If left intact, this radical decision will hobble the most important anti-discrimination voting law by leaving its enforcement to government attorneys whose ranks are currently being depleted. The immediate victims of today’s decision are North Dakota’s Native American voters, who a trial court found were subjected to a map that discriminated against them on account of race. Campaign Legal Center will continue to fight to uphold the VRA and ensure fair maps.”

"Today's ruling wrongly forecloses voters disenfranchised by a gerrymandered redistricting map, as Native voters in North Dakota have been, from challenging that map under the Voting Rights Act. Native voters in North Dakota have struggled for nearly a century for the right to vote and for inclusion in the democratic process and Tribal Nations and Native voters will continue to fight to defend their rights," said NARF Staff Attorney Lenny Powell.

After uprooting settled law in a 2023 decision concluding that only the U.S. Department of Justice is authorized by the VRA to file lawsuits, the Eighth Circuit has doubled down and further weakened voters’ power in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota to challenge unfair maps by closing off voters’ access to the country’s generally applicable civil rights statute, Section 1983, as a means to enforce the voting guarantees of Section 2 of the VRA.

Campaign Legal Center — alongside Native American Rights Fund (NARF), Robins Kaplan, LLP, and The Law Office of Bryan L. Sells, LLC — represented Native American voters on the Turtle Mountain Reservation and Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota. Native American voters in North Dakota deserve a fair map and a fair chance to ensure all voters can make their voices heard.

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The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center advances democracy through law. We safeguard the freedom to vote, defend voters’ right to know who is spending money to influence elections, and work to ensure public trust in our elected officials.

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