Supreme Court considers Louisiana congressional map case with Voting Rights Act implications
Washington- The Supreme Court on Wednesday examined for the second time a long-running legal battle over Louisiana’s congressional mapa case that could have significant consequences not only for political representation in the state, but also because of its potential to weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
At issue in this case is whether state lawmakers’ intentional creation of a majority-minority second district — undertaken to remedy a likely violation of Article 2 — runs afoul of the Constitution’s 14th and 15th Amendments.
The high court first heard arguments in March on whether to leave redrawn House district lines in place in 2024 to include a second majority-Black district. But the justices did not issue a ruling in that case and instead scheduled new arguments in his trial. new termwhich started last week.
The case originally focused on a narrower set of issues regarding the map, but in August the Supreme Court asked Louisiana officials and voters involved in the challenge to determine whether race-based redistricting is consistent with the Constitution.
The new question has raised the stakes in the case, as Louisiana Republicans urge the Supreme Court to ban consideration of race in drawing voting lines. A ruling in favor of the state could upend Section 2 and deal another blow to the landmark Voting Rights Act more than 10 years after the Supreme Court gutted one of its key provisions.
The legal battle over Louisiana’s congressional map dates back to 2022, when Republican state lawmakers drew new House district boundaries after the 2020 census. That map included five majority-white districts and one majority-black district. Nearly a third of Louisiana’s population is black, according to census data.
A group of African American voters challenged the map, calling it a violation of Section 2 because it diluted black voting strength, they argued. A Baton Rouge judge agreed, ruling that the map deprived black voters of the opportunity to elect their preferred candidate, and she ordered the state to implement a corrective map with a second majority-minority congressional district.
The new plan passed by the Louisiana Legislature in 2024 reconfigured the state’s 6th Congressional District, which state lawmakers said was intended to bring it into compliance with the Voting Rights Act. The new District 6 has a voting-age black population of about 51% and stretches across the state from Shreveport in northwest Louisiana to Baton Rouge in the southeast. Congresswoman Cleo Fields, a black Democrat, was elected to represent the district last November.
State lawmakers said they also had a political goal in mind when they reshuffled the voting boundaries: protecting key incumbent Republicans in the House, namely House Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Rep. Julia Letlow, who sits on the powerful Appropriations panel.
But after the new map was adopted, a group of 12 voters describing themselves as “non-African American” challenged the boundaries, alleging that the new District 6 was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. A divided three-judge panel in Shreveport sided with voters and ruled that the state Legislature relied too much on race when crafting the new map.
The case came before the Supreme Court during his final term, and Louisiana Republicans joined with black voters and voting rights groups to urge the justices to leave the new congressional map in place. But with the case set to be re-argued and the focus now shifting to the constitutionality of race-based redistricting, Republican state lawmakers are no longer defending their districts.
Instead, state officials argue there should be “zero tolerance for any consideration of race.”
“[R]The ace-based redistricting imposed by Section 2 is unconstitutional because it violates fundamental principles of equal protection: it uses race as a stereotype, uses race as a negative, and has no logical end point,” wrote Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill, Republican and Solicitor General Benjamin Aguinaga. redistricting. “
The Trump administration supports Louisiana and “non-African American” voters in this case and has urged the Supreme Court to toughen the standards for proving illegal vote dilution under Section 2. The framework in place since 1986 requires plaintiffs to demonstrate racial polarization in voting, in addition to other prerequisites.
“Too often, Section 2 is deployed as a form of race-based electoral affirmative action to undo a state’s constitutional pursuit of political goals. This misuse of Section 2 is unconstitutional,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a filing.
But attorneys for voters who challenged the original district boundaries, which were later redrawn to include a second majority-black district, say the new map largely prioritized Republican policy goals of protecting key incumbent elected officials. Any consideration of race, they said, was limited and motivated by a compelling interest in remedying a violation of the Voting Rights Act.
“[T]The notion that the sun has set on the need for race-sensitive corrective redistricting for identified instances of racial vote dilution is contrary both to the fact of continued discrimination in Louisiana and to the text and purpose of the law. [Section 2] as amended in 1982 and has been consistently interpreted by this Court since,” attorneys for black Louisianans wrote in a filing.
They warned that removing Section 2 protections for minority voters in Louisiana “will not end discrimination in this country or lead to a race-blind society, but it may well lead to a sharp decline in minority representation at all levels of government in many parts of the country.”
Without this provision, “jurisdictions could simply eliminate minority opportunity districts even though they remain necessary for voters of color to have the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice, thereby erasing minority representation and re-segregating legislatures, city councils, and school boards – as some have recently attempted to do,” the attorneys wrote.
The Supreme Court is hearing the Louisiana map case again a little more than two years after upholding Section 2 and reaffirming the framework for proving vote dilution set forth in the 1986 decision. The high court divided 5-4 in that 2023 case, which involved a challenge to Alabama’s congressional map, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joining the three liberal justices in the majority.
While the high court rejected the possibility of weakening Section 2, Kavanaugh suggested there must be an end point for the use of race-based remedies. He wrote in a concurring opinion that “the power to conduct redistricting based on race cannot extend indefinitely into the future.”
During oral arguments Wednesday, Kavanaugh said the Court has said race-based remedies are allowed, sometimes for a long period of time, but they should not be indefinite and should have an end point, and he asked when that should be.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Janai Nelson, who is advocating for the black constituents group, said there is no precedent to suggest that a law should be dissolved on its own because race is part of the cure. And she argued that the nondiscrimination element of the 15th Amendment is “a continuing right, much like the protection afforded by Section 2.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested Nelson was saying that Section 2 itself is not a remedy that should have an end point, but rather a mechanism – a sort of “control” over “areas in which we might need to work.” She compared it to a “tape measure” that “doesn’t need a life cycle.” Nelson agreed and noted that Article 2 cases have declined over the past decade.
Justice Samuel Alito questioned Nelson about the differences between racial voting and partisan voting. If it is reasonable to create districts to protect incumbents, isn’t seeking partisan advantage something legislatures can seek?
No, Nelson replied, not under the 14th and 15th Amendments. Redistricting on a partisan basis, she said, cannot be done “to the detriment of the principle of equal protection.”
He suggested that racially polarized voting could easily be identified through statistical analysis, and that it would be possible to see whether white Democrats vote for black Democrats at a lower rate, for example.
Nelson told him that white Democrats did not vote for black candidates, whether they were Democrats or not. She said there was no doubt that while there was some correlation, that race was the determining factor.
Both Kavanaugh and Roberts will play key roles as the Supreme Court weighs the constitutionality of race-based mapping. Both judges also voted in favor prohibit the use of breed as a factor in college admissions, a decision that came at the same time as the Alabama voting rights dispute.
Roberts, in particular, has long denounced racial classifications. In a 2006 concurring opinion, the chief justice wrote, “it is a sordid business to divide us along racial lines.” He also authored the 2013 majority opinion that dismantled Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, writing, “our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too great, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to address this problem meets current conditions.”
A decision from the Supreme Court is expected by the end of June or early July.
