Supreme Court to rehear case over Louisiana’s second majority-Black district

The Supreme Court on Friday put off deciding whether to uphold a Louisiana map that added a second majority-Black congressional district in the state, saying it would rehear the case in its next term.

States must thread a needle when drawing electoral districts. The landmark Voting Rights Act requires states in some circumstances to consider race as a means to redress discriminatory electoral practices. But maps that are explicitly based on race violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which requires all people to be treated equally.

In a brief, unsigned order, the justices said they would schedule arguments soon to rehear whether race was the predominant factor in the drawing of the new Louisiana district. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the court’s action, which was announced on the last day of the court’s term.

The delay for now leaves in place the voting maps that were used in Louisiana in 2024. Under those maps, Democrats last year won a second congressional district out of six in Louisiana.

Control of the House of Representatives is up for grabs next year. Republicans hold 220 seats and Democrats 212.

The court’s majority did not say why it was delaying the case, writing only that it will later issue an order scheduling arguments and “specifying any additional questions to be addressed in supplemental briefing.”

In dissent, Thomas wrote that the court should have decided the case to resolve what he called the “intractable conflict” between the Constitution and the court’s interpretation of the Voting Rights Act. The court, he contended, had placed the landmark voting law “in direct conflict with the Constitution” in a 2023 ruling that required Alabama to draw a second district that would allow minority voters to elect a candidate of their choice.

Court watchers said it was difficult to determine the significance of the delay without knowing what additional issues the justices want to address.

Harvard law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos said the case would prove consequential if the justices decided to take up the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, as Thomas wants. But the case is a “poor vehicle” for that issue because it does not include a Voting Rights Act claim, he said.

Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt said he considers the case straightforward and was surprised by the decision to hold another round of arguments. It may be that “more justices than expected think this case is harder than it is,” said Levitt, who advised the White House under President Joe Biden on voting policies.

The rescheduling of arguments delays the resolution of a long-running and complex dispute over Louisiana’s congressional map that featured dueling lawsuits and claims over how to most fairly apportion the state’s voting population. It began in 2022, when the state proposed a voting map with just one majority-Black congressional district, covering New Orleans and part of Baton Rouge.

Black voters and civil rights groups sued, claiming the map diluted their voting power in the state, where about one-third of voters are Black.

A federal court in Louisiana ruled for the plaintiffs, ordering a new map drawn and blocking the state from using the map with one majority-Black district in 2022. The ruling was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th District in New Orleans.

After additional legal wrangling, the state legislature redrew the map in 2024, creating the second majority-Black district. That prompted a group of self-described “non-African American” voters to sue, claiming the map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that violated the Equal Protection Clause. Louisiana and the plaintiffs in the first lawsuit moved to intervene.

A three-judge panel of the Louisiana district court blocked the state from creating the new district, ruling that race was the predominant criteria for creating it. But in May 2024, the Supreme Court placed that ruling on hold while the state government, along with Black voters and civil rights groups, appealed the panel’s ruling.

State officials said they wanted to end the uncertainty caused by the dispute and keep in place the map with two Black districts. It also had been drawn to preserve the districts of two powerful Republican members of Congress, House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

“Louisiana would rather not be here,” Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga told the Supreme Court during oral arguments in March. “We would rather not be caught between two parties with diametrically opposed visions of what our congressional map should look like. But this has become life as usual for the states under this court’s voting cases.”