Victory in North Carolina Voting Rights Act Case

Earlier today, a federal judge in Washington, DC, dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of private citizens challenging the Voting Rights Act in Laroque v. Holder.  The Legal Center’s Executive Director J. Gerald Hebert said of the decision: “The court today got it exactly right in granting the motions to dismiss.  That the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue was never in doubt.”

Hebert served as co-counsel to a group of intervenors in the case, including the North Carolina NAACP.  Also serving as co-counsel were Laughlin McDonald of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, and Anita Earls and Allison Riggs of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. 

“This is the first of two constitutional challenges to the Voting Rights Act, hoping to find a sympathetic audience in the United States Supreme Court,” Hebert added.  “Today’s decision was an important victory in safeguarding this historic and still very pertinent piece of legislation.”