Liam Conner
Washington – Republican officials in Louisiana on Friday asked the Supreme Court to intervene in a long-running dispute over the state’s voting districts, after a panel of lower court judges said upcoming elections cannot be held under a newly adopted map. which included a second black majority. District.
The state’s top lawyers asked the justices to provide emergency aid and put on hold the ruling issued by the three-judge panel late last month that found the redistricting plan approved by Louisiana’s GOP-led Legislature in January was a racial gerrymander unconstitutional.
That map, which defines the boundaries of the state’s six congressional districts, was drawn up after a federal district court judge in a separate case ordered the creation from a second majority-black district to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. A redistricting plan drafted by state lawmakers in 2022 after the last Census consisted of five majority-white congressional districts and one majority-black district, even though about a third of the state’s population is black. The judge, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, said in her June 2022 ruling that the map likely violated historic voting law and gave state lawmakers the opportunity to introduce a new map that included an additional majority-Black congressional district. .
But the new plan adopted by state lawmakers earlier this year quickly drew a legal challenge from a group of 12 voters, who described themselves as “non-African-American” and claimed the state drew district boundaries predominantly based on race. Voters said the state, in doing so, “engaged in explicit racial segregation of voters.”
A divided panel of three district court judges agreed and, in a 2-1 decision blocked the latest Republican Party-drawn map of Congress from being used in any elections after deeming it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The three-judge panel set a June 4 deadline for imposing a new map.
A group of black voters and civil rights groups asked the Supreme Court to intervene earlier this week, and Louisiana officials made their request Friday. Both groups asked the judges to suspend the injunction and the panel’s corrective procedures until May 15.
In your 43-page file With the Supreme Court, state GOP lawyers lamented that Louisiana ran out of district boundaries just five days before the secretary of state needed to begin implementing a congressional map for the 2024 elections.
“Louisiana’s impossible situation in this redistricting cycle would be comical if it weren’t so serious,” they said.
GOP officials told the justices that the congressional map with two majority-black districts approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, not only took into account instructions from lower courts to enforce the Human Rights Act. Vote, but it was also designed to achieve several political goals, namely protecting incumbent President Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Republican Representative Julia Letlow.
They said upcoming elections in Louisiana risk being marked by confusion and chaos amid competing court orders pitting previous Voting Rights Act rulings, which called for the adoption of a second majority-black district, against the panel’s April decision, which concluded that the adoption of a map with a second majority-black district violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
“This absurd situation is an affront to Louisiana, its voters and democracy itself. The madness must end,” Louisiana officials wrote.
They warned that if the Supreme Court leaves the district court injunction in place, the 2024 state congressional elections “will be a shambles.” Republicans said that if the Secretary of State does not have a congressional redistricting plan by Wednesday, “the only map that could feasibly be implemented after May 15 (and still avoid electoral chaos) is the HB map 1, which remains programmed in the State. These district lines, which were adopted in 2022, are the ones that Dick considered likely violated the Voting Rights Act.
In addition to the request for emergency aid, Louisiana Republicans have urged the Supreme Court to consider the case in its next term, which begins in October.
“Time is of the essence to ensure that the 2026 elections in Louisiana are not marred by redistricting-related litigation,” they said.
If the Supreme Court agrees to consider the merits of the dispute, it could lead to a significant decision involving Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the way race is used during the redistricting process. Additionally, an order allowing Louisiana to use the most recent redrawn map could have ramifications for the November parliamentary electionswhen control of the House is at stake.
