WASHINGTON (AP) — On Wednesday, Louisiana decided to cease defending a political map that had enabled the election of two Black members of Congress. Instead, the state has called on the Supreme Court to dismiss any consideration of race in redistricting, a move that could significantly impact the Voting Rights Act.
Louisiana’s approach, presented to a Supreme Court dominated by conservatives wary of race considerations, might permit it and other Republican-led Southern states to redraw maps, effectively eliminating most majority Black districts, typically Democratic bastions, according to voting rights specialists.
UCLA law professor Richard Hasen remarked in an email, “Should Louisiana’s argument succeed in the Supreme Court, it would likely result in a Congress that is whiter and less representative, with a notable reduction of minority representation nationwide in legislatures, city councils, and other district-based entities.”
This Supreme Court filing by the state follows the justices’ recent call for additional briefing and arguments in the case, initially heard earlier this year. These arguments are scheduled for Oct. 15.
“Race-based redistricting is fundamentally contrary to our Constitution,” Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill wrote.
Voting rights groups defending the second Black majority district urged the court to reject the state’s constitutional challenge.
A second round of arguments at the Supreme Court is uncommon and can signal a potential significant shift. The landmark 2010 Citizens United ruling, which led to substantial increases in independent political spending, was also heard a second time before decision.
During the initial March hearing of the Louisiana case, several conservative justices on the court indicated they might rule to invalidate the map, potentially making it more challenging, if not impossible, to initiate redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act.
The case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries.
Just two years ago, the court, by a 5-4 vote, affirmed a ruling that found a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act in a similar case over Alabama’s congressional map. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined their three more liberal colleagues in the outcome.
That decision led to new districts in both states that sent two more Black Democrats to Congress.
Now, though, the court has asked the parties to answer a potentially big question: “Whether the state’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.”
Those amendments, adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War, were intended to bring about political equality for Black Americans and gave Congress the authority to take all necessary steps. Nearly a century later, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, called the crown jewel of the civil rights era, to finally put an end to persistent efforts to prevent Black people from voting in the former states of the Confederacy.
While the high court has pared back the law in the past dozen years, it has sustained the provision that allows challenges to political districts that can be shown to deprive minority voters of the chance to elect representatives of their choice.
In the arguments in March, Louisiana defended the congressional map as an effort to comply with court rulings and preserve districts held by powerful Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The court fight over Louisiana’s congressional districts has lasted three years. Two maps were blocked by lower courts, and the Supreme Court has intervened twice. Most recently, the court ordered the new map to be used in the 2024 election.
The state’s Republican-dominated legislature drew a new congressional map in 2022 to account for population shifts reflected in the 2020 Census. But the changes effectively maintained the status quo of five Republican-leaning majority white districts and one Democratic-leaning majority Black district.
Civil rights advocates won a lower court ruling that the districts likely discriminated against Black voters.
The state eventually drew a new map. But white Louisiana voters claimed in their separate lawsuit that race was the predominant factor driving it. A three-judge court agreed, leading to the current high court case.
