SCOTUS will look at Louisiana’s new congressional district after the election

MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) – Supreme Court said Monday that he would take up the new redistricting case Map of the Louisiana Congress with two predominantly black neighborhoods.

The court won’t hear the arguments until early next year, and the 2024 elections will be held under the disputed map, which could increase Democrats’ chances of retaking the closely divided House of Representatives.

AND lower court invalidated the map, but judges cleared it for use in 2024 after an urgent appeal from the state and civil rights groups.

The issue before the justices is whether the state relied too heavily on race in drawing the second majority black district.

Monday’s court ruling is the next step in federal court battles over congressional districts in Louisiana that have been ongoing for more than two years. Two congressional maps in Louisiana were blocked by lower courts, and the Supreme Court intervened twice.

The Republican-dominated state legislature drew a new congressional map in 2022 to account for population changes reflected in the 2020 Census. But the changes effectively maintained the status quo of five white, majority-Republican districts and one black, majority-Democratic district in a state that is about one-third Black people.

Given the size of the state’s Black population, civil rights activists challenged the map in a federal court based in Baton Rouge and won a ruling by U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick finding that the districts likely discriminated against Black voters.

The Supreme Court postponed Dick’s ruling until it hears a similar case from Alabama. Judges allowed both states to use the maps in the 2022 elections, even though federal judges found both states were likely discriminatory.

The Supreme Court ultimately upheld Alabama’s ruling, which led to a new map and the creation of a second district where a black lawmaker could be elected. Justices returned the Louisiana case to federal court, expecting new maps to be available for the 2024 election.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has given Louisiana lawmakers an early 2024 deadline to draw a new map or face the possibility of a court-imposed map.

Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, defended Louisiana’s congressional map as state attorney general. But now he urged lawmakers to adopt a new map with another majority black district in a special session in January. He supported a map that created a new majority-Black district stretching across the state, connecting parts of the Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas.

Another group of plaintiffs, a group of self-identified non-African Americans, filed a lawsuit in western Louisiana, arguing that the new map is also illegal because it is too based on race, violating the Constitution. In April, a divided panel of federal judges ruled 2-1 in their favor and blocked use of the new map.

The Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, suspended this ruling and allowed the map to be used.

State Attorney General Liz Murrill, whose office defended both maps passed by lawmakers, urged the court to “provide legislators with clearer guidance and reduce judicial guesswork after the Legislature has done its job.” Based on recent Supreme Court rulings, we believe the map is constitutional.”

In the first map, the state and civil rights groups were at odds, but now they are allies.

“Federal law requires Louisiana to have an accurate map that reflects the power and voice of the state’s black communities,” Stuart Naifeh of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said in a statement. “The state realized this when it adopted a new map in January with a majority-Black second district. Now the Supreme Court must do the same.”

The Supreme Court’s vote to use the contested map in this year’s election was unusual because the dissenting votes came from three liberal justices who supported black voters in redistricting cases. But in Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s opinion, they said they were motivated to vote by their belief it was time to draw a new map and their disagreement with previous court rulings that cited an electoral approach designed to block lower parties. court decisions.

“There is little risk of voter confusion by imposing a new map so far from the November election,” Jackson wrote in May.

In adopting the districts that will be used this year, Landry and his allies said politics, not race, is the driving factor. The congressional map shows politically safe districts for fellow Republicans, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Some lawmakers also noted that the only Republican whose district was significantly changed in the new map Rep. Garret Graveshe supported Landry’s opponent from the Republican Party in the fall gubernatorial elections. Graves chose not to seek re-election under the new map.

Among the candidates in the new district is state Sen. Cleo Fields, a former Democratic congressman who is black.

Associated Press writer Sara Cline contributed to this report from Baton Rouge.

Originally published: November 4, 2024 at 8:12 am PST