In a 6-3 ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana congressional redistricting map “is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”
The state had originally drawn a map after the 2020 census that contained one black-majority district out of its six districts. A lower court ruled that the map violated the Voting Rights Act, and when the state redrew the map in 2024, it had two black-majority districts.
The Supreme Court held that the Voting Rights Act “did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district.”
I don’t understand how race considerations are ever constitutional. African-Americans vote 97% with Democrats, and the Voting Act now only serves to help democrats. It has no other purpose. It’s not 1964.
CBS News:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Louisiana’s congressional map — which included a second majority-Black district — is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. In a 6-3 decision, the Court held that the state improperly used race as the main factor when drawing the map, even though lawmakers created the district to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling tightens standards for when states can consider race in redistricting and limits how Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act can be used to justify majority-minority districts.
The Guardian:
The US supreme court has ruled that Louisiana will have to redraw its congressional map, in a landmark decision that effectively guts a major section of the Voting Rights Act.
In a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, the court rendered ineffective section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the last remaining powerful provision of the 1965 civil rights law that prevents racial discrimination in voting. Section 2 specifically has long been used to ensure minority voters are treated fairly in redistricting
“Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context,” Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, wrote for the majority opinion. “Compliance with section 2 thus could not justify the state’s use of race-based redistricting here. The state’s attempt to satisfy the Middle District’s ruling, although understandable, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”
The WSJ:
The Supreme Court muddled the law on racial gerrymandering this year when it ordered Alabama to redraw its map to create a second majority-minority district. But the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals now has an opportunity to mitigate some of the damage.
On Friday a Fifth Circuit panel heard arguments in a Voting Rights Act lawsuit (Robinson v. Ardoin) that seeks to force Louisiana to draw a second majority-minority Congressional district. The case was put on pause while the Justices considered a challenge to Alabama’s map. Now the plaintiffs are using the Court’s Alabama ruling (Allen v. Milligan) to advance an extreme racial gerrymander.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) prohibits election practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race. The High Court’s Gingles (1982) test to determine Section 2 map-making violations has sown confusion in lower courts and legislatures. If states weigh race too heavily, they could run afoul of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. But if they ignore race entirely, they could be sued for contravening Section 2. This is the hard place where Louisiana finds itself.
During the 1990s, the Legislature twice tried to enact maps with two majority-black districts. A federal three-judge court struck down both for violating the Equal Protection Clause. But progressives now argue that the map the Louisiana legislature drew after the 2020 census violates Section 2 because it has only one majority-black district.
The Washington Examiner:
The Supreme Court dealt a blow to race-based redistricting on Wednesday, finding that Louisiana’s second black-majority congressional district was created in violation of the Constitution, but stopping short of gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Just the News:
“Because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race in creating SB8, and that map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito.
Boise State Radio:
It isn’t yet clear how the decision will affect November’s midterms. Primaries are well underway in most states.
Once considered the jewel in the crown of the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights Act has been largely dismembered since 2013 by the increasingly conservative Supreme Court. The major exception was a decision just two years ago that upheld the section of the law aimed at ensuring that minority voters are not shut out of the process of drawing new congressional district lines.
At issue in the case was the redistricting map drawn by the Louisiana legislature after the decennial Census. Following years of litigation, the state, with a 30% Black population, first fought and then finally agreed to draw a second majority-Black district. Two of the state’s six House members are African American.
Normally, that would have been the end of the case, but a self-described group of “non-African-American voters” intervened after the new maps were drawn up to object to the legislature’s redistricting.
The Trump administration supported them, contending that the Black voters should not have gotten a second majority-minority district.
On Friday, the court agreed.
“Correctly understood, Section 2 does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “Compliance with Section 2 thus could not justify the State’s use of race-based redistricting here.”
In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that she dissented “because the Court betrays its duty to faithfully implement the great statute Congress wrote. I dissent because the Court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity.”
“The State’s attempt to satisfy the Middle District’s ruling, although understandable, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, and we therefore affirm the decision below,” Alito wrote.
The 6-3 decision is likely to trigger a series of map redraws, especially across the South, in which a number of majority black congressional districts may soon be drawn out.
The addition of that second district amounts to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the 14th and 15th Amendments.
Such a sweep could net Republicans several districts in the battle for the House in 2026.