Conservative judges on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals last fall dealt a near-fatal blow to the Voting Rights Act, the landmark federal law, in the seven states the circuit covers. Breaking precedent, the court ruled that advocacy organizations and private citizens can no longer file lawsuits alleging violations of the VRA. Instead, only the U.S. Department of Justice can do so.
The ruling is certain to deter voting rights litigation within the Eighth Circuit, and advocates worry that the U.S. Supreme Court could take the rule nationwide. Since the 1980s, outside organizations have pursued the vast majority of VRA cases since the DOJ doesn’t have the resources, and in many cases the political will, to pursue many lawsuits on its own.
But lawmakers in Minnesota looked for a remedy this year, and Minnesota has now become the first state within the Eighth Circuit to enshrine a private right of action into state law. Governor Tim Walz in May signed the Minnesota Voting Rights Act, which spells out protections for voters and allows private citizens and outside organizations to bring lawsuits in state courts.
For David McKinney, an attorney at the ACLU of Minnesota who supported the law, the reform “honors a tradition and sets a value under Minnesota law that individuals, when their rights are violated, they’re the ones that are best positioned to assert it.”…