Supreme Court to consider role of race in drawing Louisiana’s congressional districts

The Supreme Court said Monday it will take up cases challenging Louisiana’s congressional districts, two of which were drawn to give Black voters primary political power in picking who wins those seats.

The cases give the justices another chance to explore just how much race can be used by states as they draw their legislative district lines and try to comply with the federal Voting Rights Act.

The oral argument will be sometime next year. Louisiana will hold Tuesday’s elections under the current map, which puts Black voters as the driving force in two of the state’s six districts. That’s a change from 2022 when Black voters were a majority in just one of the districts.

That previous map was challenged in the federal courts and all sides have spent years battling over how to redraw the lines.

Politics are very much in play, as the four White-majority districts are expected to elect Republicans to Congress and the two Black-majority districts are expected to back Democrats.

Those challenging the current map say it focuses too heavily on race and forced the state to draw a second majority-Black district that snakes across Louisiana, cutting from Baton Rouge in the southeast to Shreveport in the northwest.

“The state failed to satisfy its onerous burden to show that race-based sorting was necessary to remedy a VRA violation,” Edward Greim, the lawyer for the map challengers, told the Supreme Court in his briefs.

He said the new district is similar to a previous one that was struck down by a federal court in the 1990s.

Louisiana’s case comes a year after the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama was deficient in having only a single majority-Black district among its seven U.S. House seats.

Alabama is about 27% Black. Louisiana is about 34% Black.

Left-leaning groups said the new case gives the Supreme Court a chance to reaffirm the role of race in drawing districts.

“The Supreme Court has a duty to uphold its own precedent and protect voters’ rights to equal representation as enshrined in the Voting Rights Act, and that is the argument we will be making to them,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation.

Louisiana, in its briefs, argued it’s in a “lose-lose situation.” On one hand is the Voting Rights Act, which seems to compel using race as a factor in drawing districts. On the other hand, there is a growing chorus of complaints that race has come to unfairly dominate the process.

“This case uniquely demonstrates the folly of current redistricting litigation,” Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguinaga told the high court. “If the state loses this case despite this court’s promise of ’breathing room,’ then the reality is there is no oxygen in that room. But redistricting litigation should not be a fight to the death to see who finally succeeds in suffocating a state. No one truly wins that fight — the state loses, its voters lose, the judiciary loses, and democracy itself loses.”

The justices also agreed Monday to settle an arcane and intricate issue over when the clock for appealing a deportation decision begins.

The case involves a Jamaican immigrant, Pierre Riley, who was convicted of drug dealing and was in the process of being deported. He argues he faces a risk of torture or death if he’s forced to return home. He sought what’s known as “withholding of removal” or a stay of deportation.

The Board of Immigration Appeals rejected his claim. He appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled it couldn’t hear his case because he didn’t file his petition within the 30-day period specified in the law.

Other appeals courts have viewed the 30-day clock differently. In taking the case, the justices can settle which view is correct.