The U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Georgia’s newest electoral law signals that the Supreme Court could continue to fight laws that tighten voting restrictions even if the Supreme Court continues to restrict the electoral law, legal experts said.
The suit, filed Friday in the Northern District of Georgia claims the Republican-backed bill, passed in March, deliberately discriminates against black voters in violation of the suffrage law.
The lawsuit is the first major proxy lawsuit brought by Attorney General Merrick Garland. It also comes days after Garland promised the department would aggressively enforce federal electoral laws as Republican-controlled states across the country pass a wave of laws tightening electoral regulations.
“The right to vote of all citizens entitled to vote is the central pillar of our democracy, it is the rights from which all other rights ultimately arise,” Garland said on Friday at a press conference. “This lawsuit is the first step in many steps we are taking to ensure that all eligible voters have one vote, that all legitimate votes are counted, and that every voter has access to accurate information.”
Aderson Francois, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and an expert on suffrage, said the lawsuit shows the DOJ is “coming back to the area” after failing to take steps to enforce the suffrage law during the Trump and later years of Obama Administrations.
“The key is that the DOJ, through the Georgia lawsuit, has signaled to all states that it will not sit back and let only private parties and private organizations bear the burden of contesting these laws,” Francois said. “The DOJ has basically indicated that it will now bring the weight of its resources and the weight of its prestige into challenging these laws. “
The lawsuit, which named Georgia State, Georgia State Electoral Council and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as defendants, seeks provisions of the new law that allegedly have a disproportionate impact on the state’s large and growing black electorate. These provisions include extending the deadline for postal voting by one week, restricting the counties’ use of mailboxes for submitting postal voting documents, and banning churches and other civic organizations from submitting follow-up requests for postal voting.
The lawsuit alleges violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits electoral practices that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or belonging to a linguistic minority group.
Garland said the law was “enacted with the aim of denying or curtailing the right to vote based on race or color”.
Legal experts said the main judge’s focus on intentions mattered as the US Supreme Court is expected to rule next week on Arizona voting restrictions. Experts say that ruling could dictate that challenging the voting rights law proves not only that laws have discriminatory effects, but also that they target specific groups.
Rick Hasen, the Chancellor’s law and political science professor at the University of California’s Irvine School of Law, said the DOJ may have deliberately designed this lawsuit to survive such a Supreme Court ruling.
“It is highly unusual to see a case in Section 2 that only raises discriminatory purposes,” he said.
A number of civil rights groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, have already filed lawsuits to block the law in Georgia and make similar claims under the Voting Rights Act, but those lawsuits argued that the law was discriminatory in its intent and effect.
“In arguing that Georgia’s discrimination is targeted, the DOJ is essentially disputing any Supreme Court decision for the purposes of this lawsuit,” Francois said.
Republicans have argued that Georgia law is designed to ensure the safety of elections and have vigorously denied comparisons with the Jim Crow era restrictions. The bill was passed after President Donald Trump and his allies made Georgia a centerpiece of their unsubstantiated claims of widespread electoral fraud.
“This lawsuit is born out of the lies and misinformation that the Biden administration urged against Georgia’s electoral integrity law from the outset,” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said in a statement. “Joe Biden, Stacey Abrams and their allies tried to force an unconstitutional seizure of power by Congress through elections – and they failed. Now they are arming the US Department of Justice to push through their left-wing extremist agenda that undermines electoral integrity and gives the federal government more power in our democracy. “
The lawsuit came just days after a Democrat-backed bill that would have given the federal government sweeping new powers over electoral administration and suffrage was blocked in the Senate, leaving the Justice Department one of the few remaining avenues for progressives and campaigners to question a number of new electoral laws being passed across the country.
Garland has announced that the department will double the number of enforcement staff in the Civil Rights Division’s voting division to review new government voting measures. He also said the department will issue guidelines to states to ensure their mailing and early voting guidelines are in line with federal law.
The Supreme Court withdrew an important instrument from the Justice Department eight years ago when the court in Shelby County v Holder, deleted a provision of the Voting Rights Act that required jurisdictions with a history of proxy voting to obtain approval from the DOJ prior to the enactment of new voting rights laws and guidelines.
Referring to the Shelby decision on Friday, Garland said the new Georgia law “probably never went into effect” under the old rules. He called on Congress to restore the mandate for federal approval.
