Supreme Court justice pauses ruling weakening Voting Rights Act [View all]
Source: Washington Post
July 16, 2025 at 5:14 p.m. EDT
Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh on Wednesday paused a federal appeals court ruling that bars individuals in some states from filing lawsuits claiming discrimination based on the landmark Voting Rights Act.
The administrative stay will allow the Supreme Court more time to consider whether to take up an appeal by Native American tribes in North Dakota who claim the ruling endangers a powerful tool to ensure equitable voting laws. It’s unclear when the high court might issue a decision to hear the case.
“They knee-cap Congress’s most important civil rights statute,” the tribes wrote in their application asking the high court to intervene. “That blow is especially harmful to Native Americans and these Plaintiffs in particular. North Dakota — like many states — has a long and sad history of official discrimination against Native Americans that persists to this day.”
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and Spirit Lake Tribe filed the lawsuit in 2022 under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, claiming a new North Dakota voting map diluted the power of Indigenous voters by reducing from three to one the number of seats they had “an equal opportunity to elect.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/16/supreme-court-voting-rights-act/
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