The state Attorney General’s Office and other parties involved in litigation over Louisiana’s congressional map faced off this week in arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on whether the map represents an unconstitutional “racial gerrymander.”
The arguments will guide the high court to determine the outcome of the lawsuit Louisiana v. Callais, in which several “non-African American” Louisiana voters challenged the congressional map in 2024 as an illegal gerrymander that placed too much weight on the racial makeup of the districts.
The congressional map, which the Supreme Court allowed to be used in the 2024 presidential election, contains two majority-Black districts out of a total of six. Gov. Jeff Landry and the Legislature last year agreed on such a map after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a previous map containing only one majority-Black congressional district likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Black voters make up about one-third of the state’s electorate.
But the Western District of Louisiana federal court ruled in favor of the non-African American plaintiffs, concluding that the map was an unconstitutional gerrymander. Ultimately, the Supreme Court agreed to take up Louisiana v. Callais and related litigation and stayed the district court’s opinion.
Attorney General Liz Murrill urged the high court to uphold the congressional map, arguing that more clarity is needed about states’ authority to make redistricting decisions. This is required to reduce years-long litigation over whether district maps comply with both the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, according to Murrill.
“The Supreme Court needs to provide instructions to state legislatures so states are not on a perpetual federal litigation roller coaster over good-faith efforts at redistricting,” she said in a prepared statement prior to the Supreme Court hearing. “It’s very confusing to voters, it’s expensive for taxpayers and it’s inconsistent with the Constitution. We look forward to defending Louisiana’s new congressional map and proving these points in front of the Supreme Court.”
Edward D. Greim, one of the attorneys for the voters challenging the legality of the congressional districts, said he was pleased with how the hearing unfolded on Monday.
“The plaintiffs-appellees appreciated the court's focus on the intensity of the Legislature's racial decision-making,” Greim told the Louisiana Record in an email. “We also appreciated the court's skepticism about how the Legislature claimed to rely on the Voting Rights Act. We remain cautiously optimistic that this kind of brutal racial stereotyping, a relic of another era, is in its last days.”
Supporters of the current congressional map, including the Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU of Louisiana, argued the map should remain in place because it satisfies both the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause. They emphasized that in creating the district boundaries, Louisiana lawmakers took care to protect Republican incumbents in Congress, including the current speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson. Such actions show the lawmakers were not over-emphasizing the racial makeup of districts and were considering political objectives, the map supporters said.
Last year, with the new map in place, Louisiana voters elected two Black Congress members – something that hasn’t occurred for nearly 30 years, according to the National Redistricting Foundation, a supporter of the map.
"Based on Monday’s oral argument, it seems likely that a majority of justices will agree that the state of Louisiana was right to enact a map that includes two Black opportunity districts to comply with multiple court orders enforcing protections enshrined in the Voting Rights Act," Marina Jenkins, the foundation's executive director, told the Record. "As those courts held, application of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana requires the state to have two Black opportunity districts, and Louisiana should continue to have two Black opportunity districts for the rest of this decade after this case is decided.”
The Louisiana attorney general’s brief submitted to the Supreme Court suggested the justices could find that the non-African American voters challenging the map lacked standing to bring their lawsuit.
“Or, the court can simply reverse on the merits, reaffirming its promise not to leave ‘state legislatures too little breathing room’ between the competing demands of the VRA and the Equal Protection Clause,” the brief says.