Supreme Court Orders Louisiana to Redraw Racially Gerrymandered Congressional Map in Major Blow to Voting Rights Act

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Louisiana’s congressional map is the product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering, dealing a major blow to a provision of the Voting Rights Act that pertains to how the drawing of congressional maps impacts minority voters.

In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the Court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that state lawmakers violated the Constitution by redrawing the map in order to add an additional majority-black congressional district.

“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 wrote for the majority. “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.”

Justice Elena Kagan, in the dissenting opinion, said the decision represents the “demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”

The case was originally argued in front of the Court last March, but in an unorthodox move, the justices asked lawyers to reargue this past fall, focusing specifically on section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — the provision dedicated to ensuring minority voters were considered in redistricting measures.

Following the 2020 census, Louisiana Republicans redrew the map, creating one district that housed a majority of black voters. Black people make up about one third of Louisiana’s population.

In 2022, a group of black voters sued Louisiana, citing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A federal judge sided with the plaintiffs, ordering Lousianna to throw out its redrawn map and create a new one better representing that demographic. Ultimately, the new map was drawn with a second majority black district.

The decision prompted another lawsuit, claiming the second district violated the 14th Amendment by unlawfully sorting voters by their race. A panel of three judges sided with the plaintiffs and blocked the map from being used in the 2024 election.

During oral arguments last March, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Edward Greim, said it was apparent the district was drawn with race in mind because it is so oddly shaped. The district stretched diagonally from Shreveport to Baton Rouge.

The defendants, however, argued the shape was not because of race, but rather because Louisiana Republicans wanted to ensure safe seats for top Republicans in the state: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Representative Julia Letlow, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Wednesday’s decision now makes it unconstitutional to create a remedy district, like Louisiana did, after the backlash from its only black-majority district created after the 2020 census. Under the ruling, race can still be considered when drawing congressional maps to ensure no illegal discrimination is taking place, but race cannot be used as the determinative factor in drawing districts.

Kagan, however, wrote in the dissent that this decision unravels civil rights protections that have been deeply entrenched in the law for decades.

“That is racial vote dilution in its most classic form,” Kagan wrote. “A minority community that is cohesive in its geography and politics alike, and that faces continued adversity from racial division, is split—’cracked’ is the usual term—so that it loses all its electoral influence. Members of the racial minority can still go to the polls and cast a ballot. But given the State’s racially polarized voting, they cannot hope—in the way the State’s White citizens can—to elect a person whom they think will well represent their interests.”

The ruling comes amid a wave of tit-for-tat redistricting efforts in blue and red states across the country and is sure to have profound implications for other states with similarly gerrymandered maps.