UPDATES & ANALYSIS

Hispanic rights group lacks standing to challenge English-only voting materials, Iowa Supreme Court holds

by Rox Laird | May 14, 2025

An Iowa organization that advocates on behalf of Hispanic Iowans did not have legal standing to bring suit seeking to dissolve a 13-year-old injunction that barred the Secretary of State from disseminating voter registration materials in languages other than English, the Iowa Supreme Court held in a unanimous decision handed down May 9.

As a result, voting materials will now be provided only in English under the 2002 Iowa English Language Reaffirmation Act, which declared English to be the official language of the state and mandated that all official documents issued by the state and its political subdivisions be in the English language.

The Court’s May 9 decision in League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa v. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate was written by Justice Christopher McDonald. Justices Thomas Waterman and Edward Mansfield took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Despite the English-only mandate, publication of election information has briefly been allowed in languages other than English twice. The first was in 2003 when then-Secretary of State Chet Culver provided voter registration information in languages other than English based on a “rights exception” in the statute that said the law did not apply to language necessary to secure rights guaranteed by federal law and the U.S. and Iowa constitutions.

That ended in 2008 when the Polk County District Court enjoined Culver’s successor, Secretary of State Michael Mauro, from issuing non-English election information in a suit filed by ten plaintiffs – including former Iowa Congressman Steve King, four county auditors, and three state legislators.

Then, 13 years later, in 2021, the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa (LULAC) – a Latino civil rights organization, which was not part of the 2008 case – filed suit in Polk County District Court asking the court to dissolve the 2008 injunction and arguing that ballots, registration forms, voting notices, instructions and other voting materials are essential to the fundamental right to vote and thus fall within the “rights exception” in the Act. The trial court agreed, and in 2023 it granted LULAC’s motion to dissolve the injunction.

In LULAC’s appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, Secretary Pate argued that LULAC could not collaterally attack the 2008 injunction as there had been no substantial change in the facts or the law, that publishing voting materials in languages other than English is not necessary to secure the right to vote, and that LULAC lacks standing. The Court reached only the question of standing.

“The standing doctrine helps ensure that the judicial department limits itself to deciding cases, not political controversies, and entering only those judgments or decrees consistent with the judicial power,” Justice McDonald wrote for the Court. To have standing a party must show that it has sustained a “legally cognizable injury.”

Because the district court in 2008 enjoined only the Secretary of State and the Voter Registration Commission from using languages other than English in official voter registration forms of this state, it had no effect on LULAC’s “rights, status, or legal relations,” McDonald wrote.

In making its case for standing, LULAC argued that it disagreed with the Secretary’s interpretation of the English-only statute, but the Court said a litigant’s general interest in the proper interpretation and enforcement of the law is not a cognizable injury for standing purposes. Moreover, it reasoned, dissolving the injunction would not provide the relief LULAC seeks, because the Secretary would not be required to provide non-English voting materials.

LULAC asserts it has a cognizable injury because it is forced to translate voter registration materials without assistance from the government, which it says diverts the organization’s resources from other activities related to voter registration and outreach. But the Court said a “generalized assertion of resource diversion for an organization not regulated by the law at issue is not a legally cognizable injury sufficient to support standing.”

Recognizing the boundaries imposed by the legal doctrine of standing is a function of the Constitution’s separation of powers, the Court said. “In our democratic republic, the people decide matters of public policy, subject to constitutional limitations previously imposed by the people,” Justice McDonald wrote. “State court judges have no authority to serve as the general overseers of the government at the behest of public law litigants who have suffered no legally cognizable injury.”

Tags: Iowa Supreme Court 2024-25