Fourteen Republican attorneys general have filed an amicus brief in a federal appeals court to challenge a Louisiana federal judge’s conclusion that the state’s legislative districts unconstitutionally dilute the power of Black voters.
The GOP officials argue that the February decision by Judge Shelly Dick of the Middle District of Louisiana calling on the state Legislature to redraw the districts represents an illegal expansion of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). In turn, the redistricting process has become “inscrutable” for states attempting to comply with Section 2 of that federal law, the brief says.
The amicus brief also raised questions about a footnote in Dick’s decision that mentions how the sheriff’s office in one Louisiana parish’s government building is on the same floor as the registrar. The brief expressed doubt over whether the registrar’s location sent a “subliminal message” to Black residents to stay away.
But voting-rights advocates see the GOP officials’ amicus brief as an attempt to weaken Section 2 and eviscerate legal challenges to rectify district maps that reduce the voting power of minorities. The 1986 U.S. Supreme Court case Thornburg v. Gingles provides three criteria to determine if a minority’s voting power is diluted: The group must show it could form a majority in a single district, is cohesive and votes historically for candidates not favored by the majority group in question.
Sara Rohani, a redistricting fellow for the Legal Defense Fund, said the U.S. Supreme Court made clear last year in the decision Allen v. Milligan that key provisions of the VRA remain in force.
“The courts have decades of experience evaluating these cases,” Rohani told the Louisiana Record in an email. “It should not be news to anyone that the history of police interactions with communities of color suggests it’s a bad idea to put a voter registration office next to a sheriff’s office. In fact, there have been many, many lawsuits on that exact issue.”
The attorneys general’s amicus brief attempts to fabricate uncertainty in the process to determine how states can avoid litigation over Section 2 challenges when the facts in the Louisiana case are clear, she said
“Louisiana packed and cracked Black communities in legislative districts throughout the state to dilute their voting power,” Rohani said. “The district court got it right, and we look forward to that decision being affirmed so the state can adopt a fair and non-racially dilutive map that reflects the will of the people of Louisiana.”
Dick found that the Louisiana legislative districts violated Section 2 because, while Black voters in the state represent about one-third of the electorate, only 28.2% of state Senate districts have Black majorities. On the House side, the share of districts with Black majorities is 27.6%.
“Amici states deserve fair notice regarding how to draft redistricting laws that comply with federal law,” the GOP officials’ brief to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals states. “Yet under the district court’s freewheeling approach, members of the Louisiana Legislature could never guess ahead of time what facts might – in a court’s view – trigger a VRA violation and thus might justify presumptively unconstitutional race-based districting.”
The brief also defends the voting freedoms put in place in Louisiana, argues the state’s redistricting law does not violate federal law and downplays the provisions outlined in Thornburg v. Gingles.
“In 2020s Louisiana, voters of all races are allowed to register, vote and engage with their preferred political party on equal footing,” the brief says. “And if (Section) 2 of the VRA is read as it was originally understood when revised in 1982, those facts should resolve this case.”