Appeals court rules against North Dakota tribes in voting rights case that could go to Supreme Court

Source: AP

Updated 3:03 PM EDT, July 7, 2025


BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal appeals court won’t reconsider its decision in a redistricting case that went against two Native American tribes that challenged North Dakota’s legislative redistricting map, and the dispute could be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case has drawn national interest because of a 2-1 ruling issued in May by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that erased a path through the federal Voting Rights Act for people in seven states to sue under a key provision of the landmark federal civil rights law. The tribes argued that the 2021 map violated the act by diluting their voting strength and ability to elect their own candidates.

The panel said only the U.S. Department of Justice can bring such lawsuits. That followed a 2023 ruling out of Arkansas in the same circuit that also said private individuals can’t sue under Section 2 of the law.

Those rulings conflict with decades of rulings by appellate courts in other federal circuits that have affirmed the rights of private individuals to sue under Section 2, creating a split that the Supreme Court may be asked to resolve. However, several of the high court’s conservative justices recently have indicated interest in making it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-act-redistricting-lawsuits-north-dakota-7d0bfc48f5a335db0a01d2ab66df7377

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Since Roberts got rid of Sections 4 & 5, 2 was pretty much the only thing left and of course he'll try to get rid of that too in order to nullify the whole thing.