Supreme Court punts on Louisiana redistricting, voting rights : NPR

The demonstrators walk in Selma, Alberta, in March with a sign saying “unite to fight against voting rights” to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the bloody Sunday March which galvanized the adoption of the 1965 voting law.

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In a rare decision this week, the United States Supreme Court has postponed the decision to redistrict from the Louisiana congress which could have implications for legal protections for the rights of minority voters across the country.

Friday, the High Court order did not explain why the court wanted to hear oral arguments again Louisiana v. Callais During his next quarter which should start in October, although he indicated that there could be details in a follow -up order which arrives in “desired time”.

“It is on the surface a fairly easy to decide,” explains Michael Li, a redistribution expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. “The Supreme Court almost never holds on dispute affairs. And the fact that it does it in this case is confusing.”

Some legal experts take care to see if the court’s decision ended up joining a series of decisions since 2013 by the conservative majority of the Court which limited the scope of the 1965 voting rights and its protections against racial discrimination in the elections.

“Observers of the law on voting rights predict a major change around the law on voting rights for more than a decade,” said Atiba Ellis, professor of law at the Western Reserve University. “The fact that the court is backwards Louisiana v. Callais Can mean that there is a deep debate and a major potential decision supported – or striking – the law on voting rights. “”

The Louisiana affair also focuses on the role of politics when rehabilitation of voting district cards, notes Justin Levitt, professor of the Loyola Law School. The punch of the Court this week “can mean that more judges want to think a little more about the interaction of the race and the policy and the law on voting rights than I would have thought, but that did not prejudge the result of this consideration,” adds Levitt, who was adviser to the White House on the voting rights during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Levitt also underlines the 2023 Court decision for a similar redistribution case of the Alabama as a sign that the law on voting rights could end up unharmed by the ultimate decision of the Court in this long battle of redistribution. In this decision, the court confirmed its previous decisions on the same part of the law on voting rights that many of its defenders fear they are weakening in the Louisiana case.

While supporters of the voting law is preparing to mark the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the law in August, Levitt, however, notes that his criticisms set up future potential confrontations to the Supreme Court.

Here is what you should know where the protections of the law on voting rights are currently in the Louisiana case and the main proceedings which could then weaken them:

Louisiana’s decision could make it more difficult to claim it than a vote to dilute the collective power of minority voters

To comply with what is called article 2 of the law on voting rights, state legislators in Louisiana – where the vote is racly polarized and that almost 1 in 3 people are black – are under an order from the Federal Court to adopt a card with two districts out of six where black voters have a realistic opportunity to elite their favorite candidates.

But a group of self -proclaimed “non -black” voters challenged the card that the state’s legislature said that it had been adopted to understand article 2. These challengers maintain that one of the districts that the legislators have drawn is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Civil rights defenders have signs saying “Louisiana deserves fair cards!” Apart from the United States Supreme Court in Washington, DC, in March on the first day of the oral arguments in the redistribution of the Louisiana congress.

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During the oral arguments in March, however, the general solicitor of the state of Louisiana, Benjamin Aguñaga, said that the legislature led by the Republicans had made a “politically rational decision” to draw a map with a pair of mainly black districts in a way that protects the seats of three large republicans of Louisiane – the Chamber of the Chamber of the Chamber.

With a deadline for candidacy for the primary elections of the State in 2026 to come in December, an order of the Supreme Court of last year retains the Congress map with two mainly black districts at least for the moment.

But defenders of the voting rights ensure any decision of the High Court which strikes the card and potentially limits the way in which the race can take into account the redistribution in the country. This could make the protections of Section 2 respects against the voting districts that dilute the collective power of minority power in areas where the vote is ravially polarized.

Alabama wants to argue again against redistribution based on race before the Supreme Court

Republican representatives in Alabama still call on another case of redistribution of the longtime congress at the Supreme Court.

This time, they have set up an argument according to which it is unconstitutional for the congress to allow the redistribution based on the breed to continue without an end date under the law on voting rights.

Brett judges Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas raised this point when the high court ruled on the map of the Alabama congress in 2023, when Kavanaugh also noted: “Alabama did not raise this temporal argument before this court, and I would not consider it at that time.”

In this decision, Kavanaugh joined chief judge John Roberts, a conservative colleague, and the three liberal judges of the Court to comply with previous decisions of the Supreme Court on Article 2 of the Voting Law.

But some defenders of voting rights are looking at to see if the Republican officials of Alabama can influence Kavanaugh this tour and finally cancel the protections of article 2 against the dilution of the collective power of minority voters in redistribution.

GOP state officials in Louisiana raised the same constitutional argument against the protections of article 2 in a state legislative rediscovery case, which is currently awaiting a decision by a panel of three judges from the 5th American Circuit of Appeals.

A case of northern Dakota could end a key tool to enforce the rights of minority voters

Last month, a law of legislative redistribution of the state of Northern Dakota approached the Supreme Court, where a potential decision could eliminate a key tool to protect the rights of minority voters.

For decades, individuals and groups have brought up a most of the proceedings focused on the application of article 2 of the voting law. But a pair of decisions on the 8th Circuit Court of United States found that individuals and groups are not authorized to continue because they are not explicitly appointed in the words of the voting law. Only the head of the Ministry of Justice, according to these decisions of the 8th panel circuit, can deposit these types of proceedings.

Amerindian voters led by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians ask the 8th full circuit to review the last decision.

In the meantime, decisions apply to seven states mainly from the Midwest – Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota – as Ministry of Justice under the Trump administration, actions under section 2 which it previously brought when Biden was in power.

Some defenders of voting rights fear that if the Dakota affair of the North is finally invoked at the Supreme Court, the high court could make it more difficult to enforce the protections of article 2 across the country. Justice Neil Gorsuch reported his interest in this question with a paragraph notice to a single paragraph in 2021.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey