The Supreme Court on Monday punted on a fight over the ability of voters to bring Voting Rights Act lawsuits, dodging a major dispute over the landmark civil rights law that the conservative majority had already left on life support with a previous ruling this term.
The justices sent back to lower courts two cases that had teed up claims that only the Justice Department could bring enforcement actions under the law, which bars racial discrimination in voting.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a member of the court’s liberal wing, dissented from the decision – saying she would have summarily resolved the cases to make clear that individuals could bring the claims rather than handing them back to a lower court for further review.
Both cases were challenges that voters – not the Justice Department – had brought to redistricting plans. The justices told the lower courts to take another look at the lawsuits in light of the opinion the conservative majority issued this month that significantly raised the bar for when a Voting Rights Act redistricting case can succeed, but that did not address the cause-of-action question.
The move leaves a final answer on a question that would effectively kill the already thoroughly-weakened statute for another day.
