ST. PAUL, Minn. — An appeals court ruling that weakened a key part of the Voting Rights Act is spurring lawmakers in several states to enact state-level protections to close loopholes the ruling opened in the landmark federal law aimed at prohibiting racial discrimination in voting.
Democratic-led states have taken matters into their own hands as national legislation to expand voting rights remains stalled in a divided Congress. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in many states have sought to erode safeguards in the name of protecting election integrity amid former President Donald Trump’s false claims that voting fraud cost him the 2020 election.
Lawmakers in Minnesota, Michigan, Maryland, New Jersey and Florida are pursuing state voting rights laws, building on laws passed in New York in 2022 and Connecticut in 2023, as well as laws previously passed in Virginia, Oregon, Washington and California have been adopted.
“And we know of interest from other states that are considering establishing state VRAs in the coming years,” said Michael Pernick, attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York.
In Minnesota, Democratic Rep. Emma Greenman of Minneapolis said she felt an urgent need to act after the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in an Arkansas case last year that voters and groups could no longer sue under of Section 2 of the Federal Voting Code. Rights Act – US Attorney General only.
Section 2 prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, including cards that disadvantage voters of color. Lawsuits under this section have long been pursued to ensure that black voters have adequate political representation in places with long histories of racism, including many Southern states.
The appeals court’s decision currently only applies to the seven states in the 8th Circuit, which stretches from Minnesota to Arkansas. Legal observers expect the case to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“As with other policy areas, you’re seeing states really need to say, ‘We need to make sure that… we have a system that is free of discrimination, we need to protect the rights of voters,’” Groenman said.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is seen as a culmination of the civil rights movement. But federal courts have “thrown it away” in recent decades, says Lata Nott, an attorney with the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., who testified in favor of the Minnesota law.
According to voting rights advocates, the biggest blow to federal law was a 2013 Supreme Court ruling in an Alabama case, which deprived the government of a powerful tool to stop voting bias by striking down the requirement that jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting to get “prior approval” from the federal government for major changes in the way they conduct elections.
Conservatives have argued that the requirement failed to take into account racial progress and other changes in society and that existing voting rights protections are adequate.
“It appears this is an attempt by the state left to do at the state level what they cannot do at the federal level under the VRA,” said Zack Smith, a legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center. for legal and judicial studies.
The 8th Circuit’s decision raised new alarms because most lawsuits to enforce the law come from private individuals and groups, not the Justice Department, Nott said. Administrations change, so allowing people to protect their own voting rights is a “valuable enforcement mechanism,” she said.
There are significant similarities between the various voting rights bills currently being considered and the laws of New York and Connecticut. They all give voters and groups a “private right of action” to challenge laws that dilute or suppress the voices of people of color, Pernick said. That’s the right that the 8th Circuit struck down at the federal level.
Some state proposals also include pre-approval requirements for voting changes to ensure they don’t harm voters of color.
The Minnesota proposal is expected to receive floor votes soon as part of a broader election policy bill, and its sponsors said they are cautiously optimistic about its passage. Maryland’s proposal has had hearings, while a Michigan effort is expected to have hearings in April, Nott said.
Several state proposals include “safe harbor” provisions to try to avoid the kind of lengthy, expensive lawsuits that were often necessary to enforce the federal law. For example, Minnesota’s bill would require potential plaintiffs to notify political constituents before filing suit, creating opportunities to first negotiate solutions.
Minnesota has an image of being progressive on voting rights, and the current legislature is the most diverse in the state’s history. But witnesses who recently testified before the Legislature said problems remain.
They point to data showing that county boards across the state, which make key decisions affecting communities of color, are disproportionately white. Electing local bodies based on districts that minority candidates could win, rather than at-large seats, is a possible remedy to prevent vote dilution.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who has been elected president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said he is trying to mobilize as many of his fellow election officials across the country as possible to build a friendly to submit a letter from the court. to urge the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the 8th Circuit’s decision if the plaintiffs in the Arkansas case appeal. But for now, he said, that ruling is the law in seven states.
“If we can no longer count on the federal Voting Rights Act to allow private citizens to protect their own voting rights, then we need a Minnesota Voting Rights Act to fill the void,” Simon testified. “And that’s what this bill does. It fills the void by guaranteeing Minnesota voters a day in court to defend their right to vote against laws or policies they believe discriminate against them.
Officials from groups representing Minnesota local governments testified that they support the concept but were concerned about the potential additional costs it could impose on them, an issue that raised concerns among Republicans on the committees that passed the bill heard. Republicans also argued that it is a heavier tool than Minnesota needs.
Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz said he had not studied the proposal in detail, but he shares the ideals of making voting easy and accessible.
“If this goes in this direction, that’s a good thing,” Walz said.
Minnesota Senate President Bobby Joe Champion, a Minneapolis Democrat, is the lead author of the Minnesota Voting Rights Act in the Senate.
“Our democracy is important. We want more people to vote, not fewer. We want more people’s voices to be heard and not silenced. We want people’s rights to be protected and not wasted,” Champion said.