Appeals court won't reconsider ruling voting rights case

Associated Press Writer

HELENA - A federal court has refused to reconsider its December ruling that Montana's decade-old legislative district boundaries do not violate American Indians' voting rights.

In a one-page order the state Justice Department received this week, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the request for a rehearing filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The petition was an attempt to keep alive a lawsuit the ACLU filed in 1996 on behalf of some members of the Blackfeet and Flathead reservation tribes. The suit challenged the 1992 redrawing of legislative distr...