Another GOP-run state refuses to comply with Voting Rights Act—even after court order

A top North Dakota Republican said there would be "no way" for lawmakers to craft new legislative districts by a court-imposed Friday deadline, marking the third time this year that a GOP-led state has ignored a court order to draw maps that comply with the Voting Rights Act.

Earlier this year, after the Supreme Court upheld a key part of the VRA, a panel of three federal judges directed Alabama to create a new congressional district with a Black majority so that Black voters could elect their candidate of choice. However, Republican legislators passed a new map without an additional Black-majority district, leading the judges to reject that plan and impose a compliant one themselves.

And this month, Georgia Republicans responded with similar defiance after a federal court struck down their congressional and legislative maps on the same grounds and issued instructions to create new Black-majority districts. The judge also warned lawmakers against dismantling diverse districts that lack a Black majority but have nonetheless elected Black voters' preferred candidates. Republicans, however, did exactly that.

The North Dakota case involves the same provision of the VRA, which prohibits states from thwarting minority representation by carving up cohesive minority populations and divvying them up between districts. Native voters brought a suit alleging that lawmakers had done just that when drawing up boundaries for the state legislature, and last month, a federal judge agreed.