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Clarence Thomas' former clerk has approved changes to how the Voting Rights Act can be enforced in seven states, in what has been described as a "body blow" for voters' rights.

David Stras was among three judges in the federal 8th Circuit Court of Appeal who, in a 2-1 opinion, ruled that only the U.S. government can sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act's provisions.

Previously, campaign groups and citizens have typically been allowed to sue to enforce Section 2 of the civil-rights law, which was passed in 1965 and outlaws racial discrimination in voting. But the judges ruled outside actors will not be able to bring legal action in the states that the circuit court covers: Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

"After reviewing the text, history, and structure of the Voting Rights Act, the district court concluded that private parties cannot enforce Section 2," the judges wrote in the majority opinion authored by Stras. "The enforcement power belonged solely to the Attorney General of the United States."

Stras, a judge on the circuit and a former associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, was Thomas's clerk, who is a Supreme Court Justice, from 2002 to 2003. Newsweek contacted Stras and Thomas by email to comment on this story.

Amid several ethics scandals faced this year by Thomas over his ties to Republican mega-donors, Stras was one of 112 of his former clerks who defended his character in a letter first reported by Fox News in August.

In the letter, Stras and Thomas' other former clerks praised him as a man of the "greatest intellect, of greatest faith, and of greatest patriotism." They described the concerns about his ethics as "a larger attack on the Court and its legitimacy as an institution." In a CNN broadcast, anchor and senior political correspondent Abby Phillip described Stras as an "acolyte" of Thomas.

With a wide backlash to Stras and the other judges' decision, he and Thomas may cross paths again because voting-rights groups expect that the ruling will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the civil rights organization Advancement Project, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the ruling was a body blow to the act. She added that it leaves Black people "unprotected from voter suppression." Sophia Lin Lakin, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Voting Rights Project, who argued the case in front of the appellate court, told Politico news outlet that the court was "very cavalierly tossing aside critical protections that voters have very much fought and died for."

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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