Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin filed a motion Nov. 5 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas to terminate the consent decree in Hunt v. Arkansas that created Black-majority judicial districts.
The 1991 decree, approved by U.S. District Judge Henry Woods, created multiple majority-minority electoral subdistricts in several Arkansas judicial circuits. A consent decree is a judge's order based on a settlement agreement between all parties. The decree came from Eugene Hunt v. State of Arkansas, filed in 1989 by Black residents who alleged discrimination in Arkansas' system of electing judges through at-large multimember districts. It created electoral subdistricts within Districts 1, 2, 6, 10 and 11 West, and required the state to comply with the Voting Rights Act by not diluting Black votes.
Griffin's motion argues the decree is no longer necessary. It says the defendants "fully complied with the consent decree in good faith" and that "any vestiges of past discrimination have been eliminated to the extent practicable." The motion says continued federal supervision "interferes with the State's ability to direct its elections and violates the Constitution by dividing voters into subdistricts solely because of the color of their skin."
The motion cites the U.S. Supreme Court's 2026 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which held the Voting Rights Act does not require states to create majority-minority districts and that states violate the Constitution when they draw district lines based on race. Griffin argues that because the consent decree used race to draw the judicial subdistricts, continued compliance is "impermissible under federal law." The motion also says the original decree was based on misunderstandings of the law — for example, the parties believed more than intentional discrimination was covered.
In a press release, Griffin said: "Dividing voters based on race is wrong and unconstitutional. It is premised on racial stereotypes and contrary to equal protection mandates. Recent Supreme Court cases have removed any doubt that this consent decree is an unconstitutional relic, so we have asked the district court to promptly terminate it."
The decree has protected Black voters' ability to elect judges of their choice in those districts since 1991; ending it would return those judicial elections to at-large voting, the system the original lawsuit challenged. The court has not yet ruled — this is a motion, not a decision.
Source: Talk Business & Politics