A demonstrator held a sign reading PROTECT MINORITY VOTING RIGHTS at a March 2025 rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court. Weeks after the court further narrowed the Voting Rights Act in April, the justices declined to settle another potentially landmark dispute over enforcement of the law.
In a brief, unsigned order on Monday the Supreme Court sent lawsuits challenging Mississippi and North Dakota state legislative maps back to lower courts for reconsideration in light of its recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais. That move keeps the justices from immediately addressing a novel legal claim that could sharply limit private enforcement of the Act.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has long been enforced largely through lawsuits brought by voters and civil rights groups challenging redistricting plans and other election practices. But in the Mississippi and North Dakota cases, state Republican officials argued that Section 2 does not create a private right of action — they say only the U.S. attorney general can sue under the statute. If accepted, that argument would likely reduce the number of Section 2 suits available to private plaintiffs, legal experts say.
By returning the cases to lower courts rather than resolving the issue themselves, the Supreme Court effectively took an off-ramp from a major potential confrontation over whether private individuals and organizations can enforce Section 2. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson protested the decision in dissents, noting that the Callais ruling did not address the private right of action question and saying there was no basis to vacate the lower courts’ judgments.
The question of private enforcement is not the only part of the Voting Rights Act now in jeopardy. Section 208, which allows voters who need help because of a disability or literacy challenges to receive assistance from a person of their choice, is also under attack. In an Arkansas challenge, a panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that private parties cannot sue to enforce Section 208. The same appeals court panel ruled against a private right of action under Section 2 in the North Dakota redistricting case.
Chief Judge Steven Colloton, in a dissent from the 8th Circuit’s decision not to rehear the Arkansas panel ruling, warned that the circuit is following a troubling path that would render key parts of the nation’s most successful civil rights statute effectively unenforceable within that region.
The Supreme Court is expected to receive a brief in the Arkansas case soon as justices consider whether to take it up. Meanwhile, the Callais decision in April, which narrowed protections against racial discrimination in redistricting, has already rekindled debates over congressional gerrymandering ahead of the 2026 midterms and the fight over control of the House of Representatives.
For now, parties and lower courts will have to reassess the Mississippi and North Dakota matters in light of the court’s recent precedent, leaving the broader question of private enforcement of the Voting Rights Act unresolved at the highest judicial level.
Edited by Benjamin Swasey