Louisiana urges Supreme Court to bar use of race in redistricting, in
attack on Voting Rights Act
[August 28, 2025]
By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — Louisiana on Wednesday abandoned its defense of a
political map that elected two Black members of Congress and instead
called on the Supreme Court to reject any consideration of race in
redistricting in a case that could bring major changes to the Voting
Rights Act.
Appealing to a conservative-dominated court that has been skeptical of
the use of race, Louisiana is advancing a position that could allow it
and other Republican-led states in the South to draw new maps that
eliminate virtually all majority Black districts, which have been
Democratic strongholds, voting rights experts said.
“If Louisiana’s argument prevailed at the Supreme Court, it would almost
certainly lead to a whiter and less representative Congress, as well as
significantly less minority representation across the country in
legislatures, city councils, and across other district-based bodies,”
UCLA law professor Richard Hasen said in an email.
The state's high court filing was in response to the justices' call for
new briefing and arguments in the Louisiana case, which they first heard
earlier this year. Arguments will take place on Oct. 15.
“Race-based redistricting is fundamentally contrary to our
Constitution,” Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill wrote.
Voting rights groups defending the second Black majority district urged
the court to reject the state's constitutional challenge.
A second round of arguments is a rare occurrence at the Supreme Court,
and sometimes presages a major change by the high court. The Citizens
United decision in 2010 that led to dramatic increases in independent
spending in U.S. elections came after it was argued a second time.
When the court first heard the Louisiana case in March, several of the
court’s conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the
map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting
lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act.
The case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing
political boundaries.
Just two years ago, the court, by a 5-4 vote, affirmed a ruling that
found a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act in a similar case over
Alabama’s congressional map. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice
Brett Kavanaugh joined their three more liberal colleagues in the
outcome.
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That decision led to new districts in both states that sent two more
Black Democrats to Congress.
Now, though, the court has asked the parties to answer a potentially
big question: “Whether the state’s intentional creation of a second
majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or
Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.”
Those amendments, adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War, were
intended to bring about political equality for Black Americans and
gave Congress the authority to take all necessary steps. Nearly a
century later, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, called
the crown jewel of the civil rights era, to finally put an end to
persistent efforts to prevent Black people from voting in the former
states of the Confederacy.
While the high court has pared back the law in the past dozen years,
it has sustained the provision that allows challenges to political
districts that can be shown to deprive minority voters of the chance
to elect representatives of their choice.
In the arguments in March, Louisiana defended the congressional map
as an effort to comply with court rulings and preserve districts
held by powerful Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The court fight over Louisiana’s congressional districts has lasted
three years. Two maps were blocked by lower courts, and the Supreme
Court has intervened twice. Most recently, the court ordered the new
map to be used in the 2024 election.
The state’s Republican-dominated legislature drew a new
congressional map in 2022 to account for population shifts reflected
in the 2020 Census. But the changes effectively maintained the
status quo of five Republican-leaning majority white districts and
one Democratic-leaning majority Black district.
Civil rights advocates won a lower court ruling that the districts
likely discriminated against Black voters.
The state eventually drew a new map. But white Louisiana voters
claimed in their separate lawsuit that race was the predominant
factor driving it. A three-judge court agreed, leading to the
current high court case.
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