(NewsGlobal.com)- On Thursday, United States District Judge Lee Rudofsky confirmed that he would dismiss a lawsuit that challenges the new state House districts in Arkansas. The lawsuit claimed that the redistricting of the state was designed to reduce the influence of Black voters.
The suit was dismissed but may be revived if the Department of Justice gets involved in the case as a plaintiff.
Rudofsky said that there is a “strong merits case that at least some of the challenged districts” violate the Voting Rights Act, which is alleged by the two groups who brought the suit.
He added, however, that he cannot rule on the merits of the case and has given the Department of Justice five days to join the case as a plaintiff before he dismisses it.
The judge said that he had thoroughly analyzed the text and the structure of the Voting Rights Act, and after a “painstaking journey through relevant case law,” had determined that the Court concluded the case may only be brought by the Attorney General of the United States.
So far, the Department of Justice has refused to comment on the case.
The two groups responsible for the suit were the Arkansas State Conference NAACP and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel. They argued that the new map, which created 11 majority-Black districts, didn’t create enough majority-Black districts. However, there is no legal precedent for states to create districts based on race. In fact, this is an entirely new argument put forward by far-left extremists in recent years.
The boundaries of the new map were approved by the Board of Apportionment in December.
