Federal judges strike down Louisiana congressional map that added a 2nd Black-majority district

A federal three-judge panel on Tuesday threw out Louisiana’s recently redrawn congressional map that included an additional majority-Black district, leaving the state without a settled congressional map some six months before the November elections.

The ruling is the latest in a broader set of legal challenges to electoral maps across the South. The outcome of these suits is likely to play a crucial role in deciding which party controls the House next year. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon in a South Carolina case and could get involved in the Louisiana case.

In Tuesday’s 2-1 ruling, the panel found that the redistricting map approved by the Louisiana legislature, in a measure known as Senate Bill 8, which established a second majority-Black congressional district in the state, “violates the Equal Protection Clause [of the 14th Amendment] as an impermissible racial gerrymander.”

“The State of Louisiana is prohibited from using SB8′s map of congressional districts for any election,” the majority opinion states.

Two Donald Trump-appointed judges, David Joseph and Robert Summerhays - district judges for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana - represented the court’s majority opinion. Bill Clinton-appointed Judge Carl Stewart, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, dissented in the case.

Certain federal redistricting cases are heard by special three-judge panels rather than a single judge. Appeals go directly to the Supreme Court instead of a federal appeals court.

The panel will convene on May 6 to discuss the remedial process and must decide what maps to put in place for this fall.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R), who defended the state in the case, said in a statement that she was still reading Tuesday’s ruling to discuss the state’s next steps.

“We will of course be seeking Supreme Court review,” Murrill added. “I’ve said all along the Supreme Court needs to clear this up. The jurisprudence and litigation involving redistricting has made it impossible to not have federal judges drawing maps. It’s not right and they need to fix it.”

The map that was struck down had been approved by the state legislature in January, after a federal court found that the existing map likely illegally diminished Black voting power.Before the most recent map had been established, Black voters in Louisiana had a majority in just one of the state’s six congressional districts, despite making up nearly a third of the statewide population. The map approved by state lawmakers and signed by the governor would have increased the Black makeup of Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District from 23 percent to 54 percent.

While Tuesday’s decision was before the three-judge panel, the Black voters who brought the original case could try to get the issue back before the judge who heard their case, said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor. That would create a fast-moving struggle over who should determine which maps are used this fall.

Levitt, who previously worked at the Justice Department and advised the Biden White House on voting policies, said state lawmakers could have prevented the latest ruling by more closely adhering to redistricting principles when they drew the maps. The problems were exacerbated when the second case went to a different court, he said.

“This, to me, is what happens when you allow gamesmanship to drive results,” Levitt said. “And once again, the voters of Louisiana are suffering.”

The second Black-majority district was widely viewed as a victory for Democrats in the state, posing a threat to Republicans’ narrow majority in the U.S. House. The new map had spared the home districts of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). But it put Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), who represents the 6th District, in political peril.

Louisiana state Sen. Cleo Fields and Quentin Anderson, two Black Democrats, previously announced they were running for Congress in the new majority-Black district.

The ruling is the latest in a years-long fight over redistricting in Louisiana. Republicans who control state government agreed to draw new maps this year after a federal judge and an appeals court ruled the state’s congressional plan likely violated the Voting Rights Act.

Almost immediately after the legislature approved the new district with a Black majority, people who described themselves as “non-African American voters” sued in a different federal court. They argued the new map violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The panel on Tuesday agreed with those voters.

Its ruling puts the state in an untenable spot because one congressional plan has been found to violate the Constitution and another to likely violate the Voting Rights Act, said Stuart Naifeh, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund who has represented Black voters in the litigation.

“The court has put the state and voters in the state in the position where there’s just no clarity about what the map should look like and whose rights are more important,” Naifeh said. “It creates a complete mess that I think is exactly the kind of complete mess that the Supreme Court has warned on numerous occasions states should not be put in.”

Naifeh expressed frustration at the ruling, particularly after the state had to use a congressional plan in 2022 that a judge had already determined likely violated Black voters’ rights.

“This has been a long slog for Black voters to have equal ability to elect candidates of their choice in Louisiana, and this court has just stripped that away from them yet again,” he said.