How Some States Are Responding to the Worst Attack on Voting Rights in Decades

To Minnesota state Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, the mission was obvious: He had to do something to bolster protections against racial discrimination in voting.

When a panel from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a ruling limiting who can sue under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party member and his colleagues drafted legislation to safeguard the sanctity of the ballot box.

The panel’s November decision concluded that only the U.S. Department of Justice can bring lawsuits alleging Voting Rights Act violations. This was even though, for decades, ordinary citizens and advocacy groups had been vital to getting courts to secure fair and equal representation for marginalized communities.

Born in Minnesota but with family roots that extend into former Jim Crow territories, Champion grew up keenly aware of how easily the right to vote can be snatched away from Black Americans.

His work has finally paid off. Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party Gov. Tim Walz on Friday signed into law the Minnesota Voting Rights Act, after the Senate and House approved the bill earlier last week. Minnesota is the first state to respond to the panel’s decision with its own Voting Rights Act. The existence of the law brings into focus how bleak the voting rights landscape has become over the past year: Conservative legislators and judges have ramped up their attacks on the franchise since last June’s U.S. Supreme Court decision reaffirming a key legislative achievement of the Civil Rights Movement.

Read More: How the Legacy of a Reconstruction-Era Massacre Shapes Voting Rights Today

“This is the political environment we live in. It’s not getting better — it’s getting worse,” Champion, the lead Senate author of the Minnesota Voting Rights Act, told Capital B.

His district includes parts of Minneapolis, a city that in recent years has been the center of racial justice protests after the high-profile police killings of Black men, including George Floyd and Amir Locke.

“Usually,” Champion added, “you get rid of protections when there’s been improvement, when you can conclude that a particular need no longer exists. But that’s not the case. It’s not even close.”

Read on to learn more about the greatest assault on Black political power in decades — and the effort to quash it.

How are voting rights under siege?

Advocates were stunned when the Supreme Court last summer upheld a lower-court decision finding that Alabama’s racially discriminatory congressional map violated the Voting Rights Act. Many had expected the conservative-majority high court to obliterate what remained of the landmark law after 2013’s devastating Shelby County v. Holder opinion.

But any excitement advocates felt has since evaporated, as conservative forces intensify their assault on the Voting Rights Act and as cases that could undercut the law continue to make their way through federal courts.

In April, for instance, a group of self-described “non-African American” Louisianans (at least a few are white) challenged the state’s new congressional map. They insisted that complying with the Voting Rights Act by drawing a map with two majority-Black districts — Louisiana is about 33% Black — discriminates against white Americans and, as a result, violates the 14th and 15th Amendments.

(Notably, this argument is consistent with one that the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, is advancing through “Project 2025.” The actual problem beleaguering our country, according to the transition plan, is “anti-white racism.”)

The Supreme Court this month allowed the state to use the new map in the 2024 elections. But the justices could still hobble the Voting Rights Act next term. They’re expected to hear the constitutional challenge from the “non-African American” Louisianans.

What does the 8th Circuit decision mean for Black communities?

Dismissing decades of precedent, the panel in November concluded in a redistricting case out of Arkansas that neither ordinary citizens nor advocacy groups such as the NAACP can bring lawsuits under Section 2 — that only the U.S. Department of Justice has that authority.

Or put differently, for the first time since 1965, people in Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota can’t enforce their federal rights against discrimination under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Mere days later, the Republican attorneys general of 12 states — Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia — joined an amicus brief. They asked that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most conservative appeals court in the country, embrace a similar interpretation of Section 2, illuminating the ripple effects of the decision.

Without Section 2, the law that turned the U.S. into a multiracial democracy only six decades ago would devolve into a dead letter.

“It was horrible,” Barry Jefferson, the political action chair of the Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP, one of the plaintiffs in the case, told Capital B. “It showed where the country is. We have lawmakers and judges trying to turn back the clock to a time when Black Americans’ voices weren’t heard. The decision has totally changed how we fight.”

One way advocates are battling the newest attack on the Voting Rights Act? By moving to defend the ballot box on the state level.

What does the Minnesota Voting Rights Act mean in the long run?

The law revives private enforcement after the 8th Circuit decision and eases the process of voting for college students. It also abolishes prison gerrymandering by using an incarcerated person’s previous address instead of the address of their place of imprisonment for census counting.

“Democracy thrives when everyone’s voice is heard. Today, we’re ensuring a strong democracy by prioritizing accessibility and voter protections,” Walz said in a press release. “With this bill, we are breaking barriers that stand in the way of voting, protecting fair democratic processes, and paving the way for Minnesota to continue to lead the nation in voter turnout.”

When Walz signed the Minnesota Voting Rights Act, Minnesota became the seventh state to adopt such legislation. The other states are Connecticut (2023), California (2002), New York (2022), Oregon (2019), Virginia (2021), and Washington (2018). State Voting Rights Acts are being considered in Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, and New Jersey.

Champion, the Minnesota senator, explained that when the opportunity emerged to codify protections for marginalized voters, history and reason obligated him to seize it.

“My mom — from Hooks, Texas — is still alive, and to this day, she votes in every single election, and she makes sure that her family does, too. That’s how crucial the right to vote is,” he said. “And if anything is impeding that right, we must work diligently to overcome that barrier.”

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