WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court Louisiana on Monday agreed to settle a bitter legal dispute over its effort to draw a congressional district map while investigating claims it illegally considered the race.
The case has no immediate bearing on this year’s election in the state, which uses a map with two out of six black districts.
The Republican-led state was sued on two fronts when the map was drawn based on 2020 Census data.
One lawsuit argued that in order to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act, the state must draw a map that includes two majority Black districts. But after the case was settled in a victory for civil rights plaintiffs, a new state map drawn in accordance with the finding was challenged by a group of “African-American” voters who said it discriminated and violated the 14th Amendment. against them.
A federal court struck down the new map, but state officials successfully asked the Supreme Court as time ran out to finalize congressional districts before this year’s elections. put the lower court decision on hold in May.
In the latter case, the state’s second-majority Republican leadership has unlikely allies in the form of civil rights plaintiffs who originally sued to secure the Black district.
Louisiana Attorney General Benjamin Aguiñaga wrote in court filings that the state is “stuck in an endless game of ping pong” that needs to be resolved. Otherwise, “no matter what the state does, it will be brought to court again,” he added.
The state argues in part that it should be able to draw districts along partisan lines to protect incumbents, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican.
If not amended, the panel’s decision would add federal courts to the redistricting process and deprive states of the flexibility they need to consider other legislative priorities when acting to remedy violations found.
The Legal Defense Fund, a civil rights legal group that challenged the original map, said in a separate filing that the lawyers would “further involve the federal courts in the redistricting process” if the lower court’s ruling is upheld and supports the state. deprives states of the necessary flexibility to take into account other legislative priorities when acting to remedy identified violations.
Attorneys for Phillip Callais and 11 other plaintiffs said in their filing that the state should be “embarrassed” for using race to draw district lines in a way that “overrepresents black voters” and could cost Republicans their majority in the House. Representatives.
The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority that, in a surprising move, He supported the federal Voting Rights Act In another racial gerrymandering case involving the 2023 congressional map in Alabama.
The court will hear oral arguments and rule on the Louisiana case during its current term, which ends in June.