Following the court’s 6-3 decision this week to permit the use of a Louisiana congressional district design that contains a second, primarily black district in the fall elections, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. Supreme Court posed an important query. After a series of court cases involving Louisiana’s congressional district redistricting, the Supreme Court was asked to step in. Despite its Republican past, the state had difficulties in 2022 when a district judge declared that a previous map created by state legislators controlled by the GOP violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The state legislature of Louisiana then approved a revised design in January that included an additional district with a majority of black voters.
Black voters made up around one-third of the state’s population, but the previous plan sought to preserve the “status quo” by include only one district with a majority of black voters. Following a challenge by a group of Louisiana voters who identified as “non-African American” against the revised plan, disagreements over congressional district lines were later brought before a federal three-judge panel. The panel concluded that the revised map’s exclusive reliance on racial considerations rendered it unlawful.
All six of the conservative Supreme Court justices joined forces with a group of African American voters on Wednesday to put the panel’s decision on hold in the interim. In the general election that will take place in November, voters will have two districts with a majority of Black people thanks to the ruling. Voters will have the chance to submit a comprehensive appeal of the panel’s judgement in April if the decision is halted. To guarantee that there would be enough time to prepare for Election Day, Republicans in Louisiana had pleaded with the Supreme Court to get involved in the issue. In a prior court filing, Secretary of State Nancy Landry stressed that in order to “accurately administer the congressional election,” a finalised district design had to be submitted by Wednesday.
The conservative majority contended that maintaining the district map was essential to prevent confusion among voters so close to November. However, Jackson, who penned the opinion of the three liberal justices opposing the decision, argued that there was sufficient time to redraw a new map before the Supreme Court needed to intervene.