Appellate Judge David Stras spoke for the two-judge-majority. Former Republican Oval Office occupant Donald Trump, a white nationalist sympathizer, put Stras on the bench. Stras’s decision backed a lower court judge also Trump-named against the Voting Rights Act.
Who can sue to enforce key voting protections for people of color under the Voting Rights Act could be severely limited by a lawsuit out of Arkansas, which may be headed for the Supreme Court.
Circuit Judge David Stras, regarding a decadeslong court assumption that Section 2 of the landmark civil rights law is privately enforceable. Stras was one of three judges of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who upheld a lower court’s ruling that only the head of the Justice Department can bring Section 2 lawsuits and dismissed an Arkansas redistricting case that argued that the state’s House map dilutes the voting power of Black people. (NPR Nov. 20, 2023)
Who can sue to enforce key voting protections for people of color under the Voting Rights Act could be severely limited by a lawsuit out of Arkansas, which may be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.