Beating Back Attacks on Voting Rights

Nov 30, 2023

In a ruling handed down in November, the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals gutted a key section of the (VRA), making it harder to enforce the 1965 law. In a 2-1 decision, the court upheld a lower court decision preventing private citizens and organizations from using Section 2 of the VRA to sue against racial discrimination in voting rights.

The ruling contends that only the U.S. Attorney General can bring legal challenges. But, according to , 鈥渋n the past 40 years, at least 182 successful Section 2 cases have been filed and, of those, only 15 鈥榳ere brought solely鈥� by the attorney general.鈥�

The ruling is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court, but that same body the VRA a decade ago.

According to , only massive voter turnout in the 2024 general election can overcome predictable attacks on voting rights. Rev. Spaulding is an activist, pastor, professor, and founder of , and a member of . She spoke with 大象传媒 Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on YES Presents: Rising Up With Sonali about the state of the VRA.

Sonali Kolhatkar joined 大象传媒 in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of聽大象传媒 Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute鈥檚 Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of聽Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice聽(2023) and聽Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence聽(2005). Her forthcoming book is called聽Talking About Abolition聽(Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women鈥檚 Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master鈥檚 in Astronomy from the University of Hawai鈥檌, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on 鈥淢y Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host鈥� in her 2014聽聽of the same name.