The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday decided against hearing a lawsuit brought against the state of Louisiana regarding its congressional map and, instead, will allow it to be redrawn to include another majority-black district.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday decided against hearing a lawsuit brought against the state of Louisiana regarding its congressional map and, instead, will allow it to be redrawn to include another majority-black district.
“Today’s decision follows on the heels of the court’s 5-4 ruling earlier this month holding that Alabama also has to re-draw its congressional district maps to include a second majority-minority district,” Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, told the outlet.
“And like the Alabama ruling, it doesn’t explain why the court nevertheless had issued emergency relief to allow Louisiana to use its unlawful maps during the 2022 midterm cycle,” Vladeck noted further. “It puts the court’s interventions last year into ever-sharper perspective.”
As a result of the new order, the lower court proceedings in the case, which had been halted by the conservative majority in late June of the previous year, will resume. During that time, a merits panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals was getting ready to conduct a prompt review of a judge’s decision that stated the 5-1 congressional plan likely infringed upon the Voting Rights Act, CNN noted.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, an Obama appointee, had been deliberating on a corrective congressional plan following the refusal of Louisiana lawmakers to pass one that included a second majority-black district.
The justices said Monday that their latest move “will allow the matter to proceed before the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for review in the ordinary course and in advance of the 2024 congressional elections in Louisiana.”
Last year, Louisiana state officials faced a lawsuit concerning their congressional map, which was approved by the Republican legislature despite being vetoed by Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. The map in question resulted in only one out of the six districts being majority black, despite the 2020 census indicating that the state’s population is 33 percent black, CNN noted further.
An attorney challenging the Louisiana map, Abha Khanna of the Elias Group, praised the Supreme Court’s decision to send the case back to lower courts.
“By dismissing this case as improvidently granted, the Supreme Court once again affirmed the power of the Voting Rights Act to prevent racially discriminatory redistricting, this time in Louisiana,” Khanna noted in a statement, per CNN.
“Black voters in Louisiana have suffered one election under a congressional map that unlawfully dilutes their political influence. Thankfully, Louisiana is now on track to add an additional minority opportunity district in time for 2024, ensuring that black Louisianians are finally afforded fair representation in the state’s congressional delegation,” Khanna added.
Earlier this month, the high court ordered Alabama to redraw its congressional map after ruling that the initial one following the 2020 Census violated the Voting Rights Act.
The high court ordered the map to include “an additional black majority district to account for the fact that the state is 27% black,” CNN reported at the time.
“The decision – that affords additional opportunities for minority voters to elect the candidate of their choice – comes as a surprise given the conservative majority on the court,” CNN added, noting further that the ruling was 5-4.
SCOTUS Blog, which tracks rulings in real-time, noted earlier, “A three-judge district court held in this case that the challengers demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of success on their claim that Alabama’s congressional maps violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bans discrimination in voting. The court today upholds that determination.”