The ACLU of Arkansas and the ACLU filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on behalf of the Arkansas State Conference NAACP and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel. The brief urges the full court to rehear Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians v. Howe — a case in which a divided panel wrongly ruled that private plaintiffs can no longer enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act through 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
Why It Matters
If left standing, this decision would effectively gut what remains of the Voting Rights Act in the Eighth Circuit, making it the only federal appeals court in the country where voters have no legal pathway to challenge racial discrimination in voting. This would leave voters — especially Black voters — across Arkansas and six other states defenseless against gerrymandering, vote dilution, and other discriminatory practices.
Key Allegations
The panel’s ruling in Turtle Mountain misinterpreted previous Eighth Circuit precedent by wrongly concluding that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act cannot be enforced through Section 1983.
This decision contradicts the panel’s earlier acknowledgment in Arkansas State Conference NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment that Section 1983 enforcement remained viable.
Shutting off both direct and Section 1983-based enforcement of Section 2 would defy decades of legal precedent and legislative intent.
Without private enforcement, the Department of Justice alone lacks the capacity to protect voters’ rights at the scale needed across the Eighth Circuit.
The Broader Impact
This case has sweeping implications for voting rights in Arkansas, North Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Since 1982, every successful Section 2 case in the Eighth Circuit has been brought by private plaintiffs — not the federal government. If the panel ruling stands, Section 2 will become a dead letter in this region, stripping communities of one of their last tools to ensure fair representation and challenge discriminatory voting laws.
