GOP Quickly Moves to Expand Latest Ruling Weakening VRA

Only a day after a federal appeals court ruled that voters in seven states can no longer enforce a key voting rights protection, the Republican National Committee (RNC) moved to spread that decision further. 

In a court filing Tuesday, the RNC urged the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to adopt the same extreme interpretation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that the Eighth Circuit did. That ruling stripped away private enforcement of Section 208, a critical protection for voters with disabilities and limited language proficiency. 

“Section 208 creates no private right of action,” the RNC wrote in its letter, arguing the Fifth Circuit — or the U.S. Supreme Court — should  “so hold.”

In other words, the RNC argued, Section 208 can’t be enforced by private organizations or individuals — only by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The RNC’s filing comes in the case La Unión del Pueblo Entero v. Abbott, a major challenge to voter assistance provisions in Texas’ sweeping 2021 voter suppression law that voting rights groups say violates Section 208. That provision has, for over 40 years, guaranteed that voters who need help casting their ballot can get assistance from someone of their choice. 

The case is currently before the Fifth Circuit, but the RNC has now made it a testing ground for expanding the Eighth Circuit’s anti-VRA logic. If the Fifth Circuit agrees, it would wipe out the ability of voters themselves to enforce their right to assistance at the ballot box in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. 

If the Fifth Circuit disagrees, and affirms that Section 208 is privately enforceable, it would create a clear circuit split, putting more pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the conflicting decisions. 

The GOP has also urged courts to adopt the same restrictive view for Section 2 – the core provision that bans racially discriminatory voting laws. In a separate case out of North Dakota, GOP-led states asked the Supreme Court to rule that only the federal government — not voters or voting rights groups — can bring Section 2 lawsuits.

The RNC’s filing highlights a growing push by the GOP to limit how the Voting Rights Act can be enforced.