The U.S. Supreme Court, on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
The U.S. Supreme Court has set the date it will hear new arguments in a Louisiana case that could have ripple effects for congressional redistricting around the country.
The court will hear debate Oct. 15 in Callais v. Louisiana after asking both sides to file new briefs in response to its latest question: Could a state violate the 14th or 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution when it draws election maps to comply with the Voting Rights Act?
The Callias case was filed by a group of non-Black voters in Louisiana after the legislature updated the state’s six congressional districts last year to carve out a second U.S. House seat to give a minority candidate a better chance of being elected. The 6th Congressional District was reconfigured to stretch from Baton Rouge to Shreveport, zig-zagging along the way to pick up pockets of Black voters.
The 14th Amendment, in part, addresses representation in Congress, while the 15th Amendment prevents citizens from being denied the right to vote based on their race. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 strengthened provisions in these amendments, although the more conservative makeup of the Supreme Court over the past decade has peeled back some of those protections.
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In the Callais case, justices are drilling down on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting laws and procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group.
Republican leaders in the legislature have said politics, not race, were the predominant influence on how the boundaries of their congressional map were drawn. Sen. Glen Womack, R-Harrisonburg, who authored the law that created the new districts, said its lines were specifically drawn to protect U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Speaker Mike Johnson – all Republicans.
To craft another Black majority district, much of the old 6th District in and around Baton Rouge was redrawn to fall within Letlow’s 5th District. That led to the ouster of 6th District Congressman Garret Graves, who had aligned himself against the state’s most powerful Republicans.
When Scalise was nominated for U.S. House speaker in the fall of 2023, Graves declined to support him out of loyalty to Kevin McCarthy, who had been removed from the post. In the Louisiana governor’s race that year, Graves endorsed longtime friend Stephen Waguespack, putting him at odds with the frontrunner and eventual winner, Jeff Landry.
It was Landry, as the new governor in January 2024, who called the legislature into special session to revise the state’s congressional districts. As attorney general, his office defended a map lawmakers approved in February 2022 with a single Black-majority U.S. House seat despite the 2020 census showing Louisiana’s Black population had reached nearly one-third. Black voters challenged the map in federal court, and it was ruled unconstitutional.
State lawmakers refused to budge, taking no action to update congressional districts during a second redistricting session in June 2022. This kept the lawsuit from earlier in the year, Robinson v. Ardoin, in play.
In October 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Alabama Legislature had to redo a map it approved with just one majority-minority district out of seven. Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s liberals in determining the Alabama map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Lawmakers had to add a second Black district in Alabama, which has a smaller share of Black voters in Louisiana. The decision was considered a possible harbinger for Callais until the Supreme Court issued an order Aug. 1, seeking parties to submit briefs in response to its question about the 14th and 15th amendments.
Attorney General Liz Murrill has until Aug. 27 to file her answers, while the plaintiffs have until Sept. 17. A ruling in the case isn’t expected until next spring.
Murrill has offered no comments on the Callais case since the Supreme Court’s Aug. 1 order, only saying in a statement Tuesday she will make herself available for interviews after the state files its brief. Louisiana Solicitor General Ben Aguiñaga will argue on behalf of the state, she added.
At the court’s initial hearing on Callais in March, Aguiñaga told justices that Louisiana’s congressional map was created in response to federal court rulings that required the addition of a second majority-Black district.
He also mentioned that the state feels Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional, but state lawmakers opted to redraw its maps because Louisiana had lost prior court cases making that same argument.
The Louisiana case has been pushed to backburner news status as redistricting showdowns in other states have gained prominence. Mid-decade congressional map changes are rare, but Republican governors loyal to President Donald Trump are aggressively pushing their GOP-majority legislatures to add red U.S. House seats to offset possible losses in next year’s mid-term elections. Democratic state leaders are positioning themselves for countermoves.
