On Wednesday, the Voting Rights Act suffered the second shot in a brutal new one-two punch, and some worry it could lead to a knockout blow at the Supreme Court.

The Trump Department of Justice had already recently ended long-running bipartisan enforcement of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the part of the law that assures fair representation of minority voters in congressional, state, and local redistricting (among other things). Assistant attorney general for the civil rights division Harmeet Dhillon has signaled a pivot away from protecting minority voters and toward chasing phantom claims of voter fraud and pursuing other Trump-driven regressive election changes. These moves had already significantly hampered enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.

Now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has, for the second time, held that minority voters do not have the authority to sue states and localities directly themselves for Section 2 violations. It’s a ruling that unless overturned will effectively end Voting Rights Act enforcement in the seven states comprising the 8th Circuit. What’s worse, two Supreme Court justices already expressed agreement with the position of the 8th Circuit. If three more justices agree, Section 2 would be a dead letter throughout the United States, at least during Republican administrations.

It’s worth explaining the history of the Voting Rights Act’s enforcement mechanisms in order to clarify why this latest ruling is not just a devastating blow to the law, but also an entirely ahistorical judicial power grab. When Congress passes laws protecting against discrimination, one question that arises is who may sue to enforce them. Sometimes a statute is clear that it may be enforced only by the federal government through the Department of Justice. Other statutes can be enforced by people who have been harmed under the law. When individuals or groups have the power to sue to enforce federal law, the term used is that the statute includes a “private right of action.”

Since 1982, when Congress passed the current version of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, courts have understood that private plaintiffs have the right to sue to enforce it. And such suits make up the vast majority of Section 2 suits that are brought. As the Guardian explained, “Since 1982, there have been 466 Section 2 cases. Only 18 were brought by the Department of Justice.” When it passed the revision to the law more than 40 years ago, Congress surely understood it to mean that private plaintiffs could sue. In 2006, when Congress revamped the Voting Rights Act overall, it knew that the lion’s share of Section 2 suits were brought by private plaintiffs and it did not change anything in Section 2 related to who could sue.