The U.S. Justice Department sought Tuesday to pull out of an ongoing voting rights case against Virginia over the state’s removal of names from voter rolls shortly before the November election.
The department’s motion for dismissal, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, doesn’t end the case, because there are also private plaintiffs, including voting rights groups, challenging Virginia’s action.
The motion came soon after the Justice Department, now under the Trump administration, reversed the Biden administration’s position in a case involving Louisiana’s congressional maps, and amid a reported reconsideration of the department’s approach to civil rights cases. Some voting rights watchdogs fear that the department’s priorities will shift under the new leadership.
The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the filing.
Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the Campaign Legal Center, represents the other organizations bringing the lawsuit, including the League of Women Voters of Virginia. She said the department’s withdrawal means that ongoing disputes over whether those organizations have legal standing to sue are now more critical, because private plaintiffs face a higher burden than the federal government in establishing their right to sue.
So far, Lang said, courts have found that her clients do have standing to bring the case….