Attorney General Griffin Calls Challengers’ Decision Not to Seek U.S. Supreme Court Review of Arkansas’s Successful Defense of Legislative Map ‘a Win for Arkansans’ – Arkansas Attorney General (2024)

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• July 1, 2024

Griffin: ‘Arkansas’s redistricting process is handled primarily by three statewide constitutional officers who are answerable to Arkansas voters’

LITTLE ROCK – Attorney General Tim Griffin today issued the following statement after the NAACP and ACLU declined to seek U.S. Supreme Court review of the state’s landmark win before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Arkansas State Conference NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment:

“Last year, the Eighth Circuit threw out a challenge to Arkansas’s legislative map and became the first federal court of appeals to make clear that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is not privately enforceable. The NAACP and ACLU’s decision not to ask the Supreme Court to review the Eighth Circuit’s ruling is a win for Arkansans as it ends that challenge, leaves Arkansas’s legislative map in place, and puts an end to similar meritless challenges in other states.

“For far too long special interests groups have used Section 2 to hijack redistricting decisions and dictate how states conduct elections. The Eighth Circuit’s decision put an end to that practice in Arkansas and six other states. It confirmed that decisions about how to enforce the Voting Rights Act should be made by elected officials, not special interest groups. And here, the Biden administration tellingly declined—when asked—to challenge Arkansas’s legislative map.

“It is important to remember that Arkansas’s redistricting process is handled primarily by three statewide constitutional officers who are answerable to Arkansas voters. I thank Solicitor General Nicholas Bronni and Senior Assistant Solicitor General Asher Steinberg for their excellent work on this case.”

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About Attorney General Tim Griffin

Tim Griffin was sworn in as the 57th Attorney General of Arkansas on January 10, 2023, having previously served as the state’s 20th Lieutenant Governor from 2015-2023. From 2011-2015, Griffin served as the 24th representative of Arkansas’s Second Congressional District, where he served on the House Committee on Ways and Means, House Armed Services Committee, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, House Committee on Ethics and House Committee on the Judiciary while also serving as a Deputy Whip for the Majority.

Griffin has served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for more than 28 years and currently holds the rank of colonel. In 2005, Griffin was mobilized to active duty as an Army prosecutor at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and served with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Mosul, Iraq.

He is currently serving as the Commander of the 2d Legal Operations Detachment in New Orleans, Louisiana. His previous assignments include serving as the Commander of the 134th Legal Operations Detachment at Fort Liberty (née Bragg), North Carolina, and as a Senior Legislative Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness at the Pentagon. Griffin earned a master’s degree in strategic studies as a Distinguished Honor Graduate from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

Griffin also served as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Political Affairs for President George W. Bush; Special Assistant to Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice; Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Arkansas; Senior Investigative Counsel, Government Reform and Oversight Committee, U.S. House of Representatives; and Associate Independent Counsel, Office of Independent Counsel David M. Barrett, In re: HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros.

Griffin is a graduate of Magnolia High School, Hendrix College in Conway, and Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He attended graduate school at Oxford University. He is admitted to practice law in Arkansas (active) and Louisiana (inactive). Griffin lives in Little Rock with his wife, Elizabeth, a Camden native, and their three children.

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