A federal appeals court shocked voting rights groups on Monday with a ruling that only the US government, not outside groups or citizens, could sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act’s provisions.
The civil rights law, which outlaws racial discrimination as it relates to voting, has typically been enforced by lawsuits from these groups, not by the government itself. Now that the Republican-appointed eighth circuit court of appeals has made the ruling by 2-1, this “private right of action” to enforce Section 2 of the law is called into question.
