On Monday, the Supreme Court permitted the Louisiana congressional map to be redrawn to add another mostly Black district. The decision follows a ruling the justices doled out earlier in June about Alabama’s congressional maps that upheld the way courts have always dealt with the redistricting provisions in the Voting Rights Act.
It was revealed that the justices reversed plans to hear the case themselves and lifted a hold in place on a lower court’s order for an alternate redistricting regime. Additionally, there were no dissents on record. The Supreme Court’s decision means that the lower court proceedings in the case—which were paused by the mostly conservative justices last year—will resume.
During that period, a merits panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals was preparing for an expedited review of a judge’s ruling that said the 5-1 congressional plan likely violated the Voting Rights Act. US District Judge Shelly Dick had assessed a remedial congressional plan after lawmakers in Louisiana were against passing a plan with a second majority-Black district themselves.
On Monday, the justices stated that this “will allow the matter to proceed before the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for review in the ordinary course and in advance of the 2024 congressional elections in Louisiana.”
Last year, Louisiana state officials were sued for a congressional map (one that was passed by the Republican legislature even though it was vetoed) that made just one of its six districts mostly Black, despite the 2020 census showing that the state’s population is 33% Black.
Over a year ago Dick ordered that the map be redrawn to include a second Black-majority district to the congressional plan. The judge believes that the map drawn by the Republicans most likely went against the Voting Right Act’s provisions that bar racial discrimination in voting.