Supreme Court Widens Scope Of La. Race-Based Redistricting Case

The Supreme Court has broadened the scope of a long-running legal battle over Louisiana’s congressional redistricting by requesting new arguments on a constitutional question that could further erode the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In a brief order, the justices asked attorneys to address whether Louisiana’s efforts to comply with the landmark civil rights law, intended to protect minority voting rights, may have instead violated the Constitution’s 14th and 15th Amendments, which were enacted after the Civil War to guarantee equal treatment and voting rights for black Americans.

If the court finds that Louisiana violated the Constitution, it could prohibit states from using compliance with the Voting Rights Act as justification for considering race in the redistricting process—effectively overturning a long-standing legal precedent, NBC News reported.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the UCLA School of Law, wrote on his Election Law Blog that the order “appears to put the constitutionality of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act into question.” This provision prohibits voting practices or rules that discriminate against minority groups.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority has frequently endorsed the view that the Constitution is “colorblind,” asserting that any use of race in government decision-making is unconstitutional—even if intended to address historical discrimination.

In 2013, the court invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in a case from Alabama, and further curtailed its protections in a 2021 ruling out of Arizona, NBC noted.

The justices initially heard arguments in the Louisiana case in March, focusing on more technical and less controversial aspects, with a ruling expected by the end of June. However, the broader constitutional question has loomed in the background.

The court’s latest order did not clarify whether it will hold a second round of arguments before issuing a final decision.

The Louisiana congressional map currently in effect includes two majority-Black districts for the first time in years.

The case stems from litigation over a previous map drawn by the state legislature following the 2020 census, which featured only one majority-Black district out of six—despite Black residents making up roughly one-third of Louisiana’s population.

Civil rights groups, including the Legal Defense Fund, successfully challenged that map, arguing that the Voting Rights Act required the creation of two majority-black districts, NBC’s report continued.

However, after the revised map was implemented, a new lawsuit was filed by a group of self-described “non-African American” voters, led by Phillip Callais and 11 other plaintiffs, claiming the updated map violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

While the Supreme Court upheld the Voting Rights Act as recently as 2023 in a redistricting case from Alabama, several conservative justices have signaled interest in reconsidering key provisions of the law, the report said.

The outcome of the Louisiana case could not only reshape dozens of congressional maps, but also reverberate through state and local legislative boundaries, potentially altering the electoral landscape at every level of American government, Bloomberg News reported.

Currently, the U.S. House includes 11 majority-Black and 31 majority-Hispanic districts, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of the latest U.S. Census data.

The timing is critical, Bloomberg added. Republicans in Texas are currently moving forward with an unusual mid-decade redistricting effort aimed at carving out an additional three to five GOP-leaning districts.

For decades, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Voting Rights Act to require, under certain conditions, the creation of majority-minority districts as a safeguard against voter suppression tactics that once plagued black communities in the South—such as poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation.

But conservative justices on the court have increasingly questioned whether those protections remain constitutionally justified today, with some critics noting that the current legal framework still relies on findings from 1982, despite Congress reauthorizing the law in 2006.

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