8th Circuit limits enforcement of Voting Rights Act - Click pic for more:

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

63% : "Resolution of whether [Section 2] affords private plaintiffs the ability to challenge state action is best left to the Supreme Court in the first instance.
55% : "Under the modern test for implied rights of action, Congress must have both created an individual right and given private plaintiffs the ability to enforce it.
54% : "Many statutes simply say when a private right of action is available," U.S. Circuit Judge Stras, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote in the new opinion.
52% : "In a dissent from the Eighth Circuit panel's majority ruling Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge Lavenski Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, said he would have followed existing precedent until Congress amends the statute or the Supreme Court directly rules on the existence of a private right of action under Section 2.
51% : The plaintiffs said in an appellate brief that every court that has addressed the issue of the existence of the private right of action under Section 2, including the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal appeals courts, has recognized it.
48% : "After a thorough analysis of the text and structure of the Voting Rights Act, and a painstaking journey through relevant case law, the court has concluded that this case may be brought only by the attorney general of the United States," Rudofsky wrote in his 42-page opinion, in which he gave the federal government five days to join the case as a plaintiff and continue the litigation before dismissal.
47% : Only U.S. Attorney General can bring action under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a federal judge ruled MondayA divided three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Monday ruled private plaintiffs do not have the ability to sue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
44% : In his order dismissing the case in February 2022, U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky -- also a Trump appointee -- said there was a "strong merits case" that some of the voting districts the plaintiffs challenged were unlawful under Section 2, but that he was unable to decide on the merits, because Congress had not expressly provided a private right of action to enforce the law.
39% : Indeed, when Congress last amended Section 2 by explicitly expanding its reach to voting laws that have racially discriminatory results, it expressly 'reiterat[ed] the existence of the private right of action under Section 2.'"They added that the district court's decision "disregards and effectively encourages other courts to ignore binding vertical precedent.

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