After controversial court rulings, a Voting Rights Act lawsuit takes an unusual turn

In a closely watched legal fight over how the federal Voting Rights Act can be enforced, civil rights groups have made an unusual move.

They relented.

Last Friday, attorneys led by the American Civil Liberties Union let a filing deadline pass at the U.S. Supreme Court, choosing not to ask the justices to review a controversial lower court ruling that threatens to help end one of the main ways for enforcing the landmark law’s protections against racial discrimination in the election process.

The groups say they are now considering other avenues for challenging a redistricting plan for Arkansas’ state legislature that they argue takes away meaningful opportunities for Black communities to elect representatives of their choice.

The roundabout legal strategy is resurfacing questions about the future of the Civil Rights-era legislation that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has weakened through multiple rulings since 2013.

A Trump appointee’s 2022 ruling has put Voting Rights Act enforcement in seven states at risk

For decades, it’s been private individuals and groups — not the U.S. Justice Department on behalf of the federal government — that have brought the majority of lawsuits against a state or local government for violating the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2, one of the remaining parts of the law after a major Supreme Court decision struck down a key section and effectively dismantled another.

But in 2022, U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, ruled that the civil rights groups representing Black voters in Arkansas are not allowed to challenge the state legislature’s redistricting plan under Section 2 because private groups and individuals are not explicitly named in the