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The Supreme Court is reviewing a North Dakota voting rights case involving legislative district boundaries around Native American reservations. The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and Spirit Lake Nation sued the state over its 2021 redistricting map, claiming it diluted Indigenous voting power in violation of federal law.
A federal judge sided with the tribes in 2023 and ordered a new map, but the 8th Circuit reversed that decision in May, ruling that private citizens cannot file such lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act.
The dispute centers on two maps: the original 2021 version and a court-ordered 2024 replacement. The 2024 map created a larger district connecting both reservations and helped elect three Native American legislators. Secretary of State Michael Howe wants the Supreme Court to restore the 2021 map, while Justice Kavanaugh has temporarily kept the 2024 map in place while the case proceeds.
North Dakota argues the 2021 map is not discriminatory, yet the three Native American lawmakers likely would not have been elected without the 2024 changes. Attorney General Drew Wrigley, supported by 15 other Republican-led states, filed a brief calling the current map “racially gerrymandered” and arguing it unfairly favors Indigenous voters.
The state supports the 8th Circuit’s ruling that its voters cannot bring racial discrimination lawsuits under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The NAACP, backing the tribes, counters that Congress has a “clear record” of supporting such legal challenges. The majority opinion in the case of Morse v. Republican Party of Virginia stated that “although [Section] 2, like [Section] 5, provides no right to sue on its face, ‘the existence of the private right of action under Section 2 . . . has been clearly intended by Congress since 1965.’
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