Louisiana is asking the Supreme Court to bar any consideration of race in redistricting, abandoning its defense of its own current congressional map in a move that could reshape the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
In a new brief Wednesday, the state called race-based redistricting “fundamentally contrary to our Constitution” and urged the justices to deem its intentional creation of a second majority-Black congressional district unconstitutional.
“Louisiana wants out of this abhorrent system of racial discrimination,” Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill (R) wrote.
The filing comes in response to the Supreme Court’s call for additional briefing on the matter. The justices were expected to release a decision in the case alongside their other final opinions at the end of the term in June, but instead, sought the extra information and a new round of arguments. Those are scheduled for Oct. 15.
The battle over Louisiana’s congressional maps has been waged for half a decade.
It began after the 2020 census, when the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature overrode then-Gov. John Bel Edwards’s (D) veto of a congressional map with only one majority-Black district.
Black voters and civil rights groups sued under Section 2 of the VRA, claiming the design diluted Black voters’ power at the polls. The VRA’s most prominent remaining provision, Section 2, prevents states from discriminating against voters because of their race or color.
A three-judge panel agreed, and the Supreme Court temporarily let the map stand ahead of the 2022 midterms, before tossing Louisiana’s appeal upon deciding another redistricting case in Alabama.
Concerned a court would soon draw the boundaries for them, Republican leaders in Louisiana passed a new map adding a second majority-Black district.
It was challenged by a group of self-described “non-African American” voters who claimed the state went too far in its efforts to abide by the VRA, resulting in an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
A three-judge panel agreed with those voters and invalidated the design, returning the case to the high court, which allowed it to remain in effect for last year’s elections as it weighed the case.
“Race-based redistricting is unconstitutional—and overwhelmingly so,” Murrill argued in the Wednesday brief. “The only question is whether now is the time to wind up this ‘sordid business, this divvying us up by race.'”
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