re: This proposed district map of Louisiana is absolutely nuts

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Why isn’t the state challenging this ruling?

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The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals today agreed with a lower court that the congressional map enacted by the Louisiana Legislature following the 2020 census is discriminatory and likely violates the federal Voting Rights Act.

The decision comes after the Supreme Court upheld the Voting Rights Act in a similar case in Alabama and nearly 18 months after court proceedings in which Black Louisianians and civil rights groups presented their case for enjoining the map.

The appeals court set out a timeline for the state Legislature to adopt a new map by May 2024. If it does not do so or if it adopts a map that continues to violate the Voting Rights Act, the Fifth Circuit’s decision instructs the lower court to promptly conduct a trial and adopt an appropriate remedial map.

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In Louisiana’s congressional redistricting case, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday denied the state’s petition to try to halt the lawsuit based on an unusual argument that says private individuals don’t have the right to sue over voting rights.

Other aspects of the Robinson v. Ardoin lawsuit remain pending in the 5th Circuit, but Friday’s ruling is a win for the Black voters who brought the case in early 2022 after Republican lawmakers adopted a congressional map with just one Black district out of six despite the state having a population that is one-third Black.

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On Thursday, however, the justices, without explanation or noted dissent, declined to block a highly unusual legal maneuver by the Fifth Circuit that could prevent the creation of a second majority-Black district in time for the 2024 election.

But in a concurrence, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote to "emphasize" that "nothing in our decision not to summarily reverse the Fifth Circuit should be taken to endorse the practice" used by the appeals court to delay the redistricting process "in these or similar circumstances."

Thursday's decision was a turnaround for the high court, which, in a similar case in June, ordered the state of Alabama to draw a second competitive district for Black voters. Following that decision, the justices ordered Louisiana to go ahead with its efforts to draw a new map that would comply with the rules set down in the Alabama case.

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