Supreme Court Rules Louisiana’s Redistricting Map is ‘Unconstitutional Gerrymander’
You cannot use race as a consideration to map a Congressional district.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Louisiana’s redrawn Congressional map violated the Constitution.
“Because the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race in creating SB8, and that map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito.
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not allow “voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified in Section 4(f)(2) of the Act.”
In other words, the Voting Rights Act protects everyone’s right to vote. Majority, minority, Republican, Democrat, male, or female. No one gets a preference. Not a single person.
The Fifteenth Amendment states that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
The majority point out precedents set from past cases:
The Constitution almost never permits a State to discriminate on the basis of race, and such discrimination triggers strict scrutiny. The Court’s precedents have identified “only two compelling interests” that can satisfy strict scrutiny: “avoiding imminent and serious risks to human safety in prisons,” and “remediating specific, identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute.” Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U. S. 181. The question presented is whether compliance with §2 of the Voting Rights Act should be added to this very short list of compelling interests. The Court now holds that compliance with §2, as properly construed, can provide such an interest. A proper interpretation of §2 requires examining the statutory text to understand what it demands with respect to drawing legislative districts.
Louisiana created a second majority-district map after the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana ruled that only one majority-black district violated the Voting Rights Act.
A group that calls itself “non-African American” voters challenged the ruling, arguing the new map violates the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana agreed, ruling that the state’s use of race as a primary consideration violated the Constitution.
Louisiana insisted the group could not challenge the ruling because it could not prove harm.
The decision is interesting because SCOTUS refused an emergency request to stop the redrawn California Congressional map.
The California Republican Party sued Gov. Gavin Newsom over the map in the U.S. District Court in the Central District of California.
California voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 50, which will allow the Democrat-led legislature to redraw five Congressional districts.
The districts will flip to Democrats.
The coalition claims Prop 50 is unconstitutional.
“Specifically, the California Legislature violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution when it drew new congressional district lines based on race, specifically to favor Hispanic voters, without cause or evidence to justify it,” they argued.
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
and lefty spares no lie to further their agenda in this:that could open the door for Republican-led states to eliminate Black and Latino electoral districts
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/supreme-court-voids-majority-black-141104281.html
thanks for getting this article so quick!
That’s not a lie. It’s exactly what this decision does allow, and in fact demands. Any state with districts that were drawn on the basis of the previous understanding of the VRA, which the court has now said was incorrect, must now redraw those districts with race no longer being a factor; though in most cases it won’t be in time for this year’s election.
the district will still be there..the blks and latinos will still be there..in fact the inclusions of whts not only doesnt guarantee a gop win…but the maga types might even flee once the reality of being in the same district with blmplo is realized
Where do you reside? I ask b/c your comment that people might move based on redrawn Congressional Districts that include ‘blmplo’ is Cray Cray. First there’s no basis for any ‘white flight’ from a Congressional Map redraw. Second there CD are redrawn every ten years anyway so moving one County over might put right back into the CD you fled in a decade…even less time with mid decade redistricting going on.
My entire County was shifted, as.were several others, to create a second ‘majority minority’ CD here in Alabama at Court order just a couple years ago. Very similar to this case. People ain’t gonna pack up and move b/c the Congressional District lines were altered b/c it doesn’t impact daily life. Some junkies cooking Meth next door is entirely different. Not to mention most of the South is far more comfortable with ‘race relations:’ than the rest of the Nation b/c we dealt with the issues head on many decades ago. Other than grifters and political jockeying for partisan advantages there’s little to no racial strife. Nobody Gen X and younger is focused on ‘race’, especially in small towns b/c we’ve all grown up, gone to school, played sports together, served in military, worked together… and now our kids do the same and we’re better off for it.
wht flight is a reality
the fact that you dont know that is not cray cray at all judging by most of your commentary
any gop against dei in Alabama?
any dems for it?
well there goes your race relations theory
nobody gen x and younger is focused on race ??
ahahahaaaaa…
No, “wht flight” or howevr u wont 2 spel it is not a real thing, not when it comes to being put into the same congressional district.
dc
Where do you reside? What State?
Please point out an area in contemporary USA where white flight is occurring using your definition of ‘white’ population selling up/moving out of their Congressional District b/c of redistricting.
Nice ad hominem attempt. You consistently use SIGN language when challenged. Invoking language of Shame, Insult, Guilt and the Need to be right instead of answering direct questions or providing evidence based responses to refute arguments. That’s the preferred method of leftists who refuse to engage in good faith and debate honestly b/c their goal is propaganda not free exchange of ideas in search of better understanding and truth. Given your penchant for black pill Doomer construction one might be forgiven for wondering if you’re a lefty sowing seeds of doubt/gloom.
Louisiana resident here. The population of this state is about 1/3 black. There is no congressional district that doesn’t have “blmplo” as a significant population. Maybe a small town will be mostly white, but not a whole congressional district.
Back in the 1960’s, the VRA was a reasonable attempt to provide representation for minorities. However, due to demographic changes, changes in housing patterns, and other societal changes, the VRA is no longer viable.
No, it was NEVER reasonable or proper. It was racism in it’s purest form, basing a decision strictly on skin color!
No, it was never reasonable. Look at some court cases from circa 1970, it was just as crazy then as it is now. “It’s OK to disenfranchise white people in this district, because there are so many white people elected by other districts, surely they can represent you!”
Hugely important ruling. From quick read it appears SCOTUS is more/less telling States they can only race as the predominant factor in drawing districts where:
1. Evidence of current, ongoing (not past) race based impact exists that can only be overcome by using race as the remedy.
2. States gotta tease out/disentangle political partisanship from race in drawing and gotta use partisanship v race if the ‘issue’ can be remedied by drawing districts based on political partisanship/affiliation v race. Race/Partisanship can’t be used as proxy.
Not a surprise this ruling was made. Kinda surprised it was 6/3 and that it was released in April v very end of term. Gonna be all sorts of wailing from usual suspects of race hustlers/grievance grifters. There’s roughly 2 dozen CD that fall under the ‘majority minority’ framework. Every State with those CD gonna face challenge to demonstrate their current map complete with this ruling and practically none can survive such a challenge and strict scrutiny applying this ruling.
race based “problems” can and will be created in an instant by those race pimps
the threat of violence always looms large and the gop backing down …the same
“race based “problems” can and will be created in an instant by those race pimps”
Race pimps are a dime a dozen
That’s why there are so many of them
Settle down. the Alabama AG along with other State leadership is already pushing to go back to 6/1 map from the.current 5/2 map the CT forced onto us just a couple years ago. I expect plenty other States will do the same with the opportunity to throw off the bad legacy of drawing congressional districts based on primarily racial grounds. Alabama’s motto is ‘We Dare Defend our Rights’ but Mississippi is in motion as is FLA and LA. I suspect more to follow.
I don’t know what kind of mamby pamby, soft on crime, afraid of the rent a mob, weak kneed leaders you have elected where you live but down here that dog won’t hunt.
sounds race based
‘sounds race based’….well yeah, prior to yesterday race WAS used to draw districts b/c that’s what the various Federal Judicial rulings had compelled.
You do understand there’s a.difference between the Federal Govt and the State Govt and between the Federal Judiciary and the Legislature of the State of Alabama?
we elect only the best blk matriarchy we can get
The Gov of Alabama is a little old ‘white’ lady so we don’t have what you describe as occurring where you vote/reside. Where do you reside?
This gives red states the opportunity to derive non-race-based districts before the midterms. This could result in a huge increase in congressional districts that are favorable for Rs.
Yes, this is precisely what Florida and Mississippi are now about to do. They both slightly jumped the gun, in anticipation of this ruling. Or rather, they both positioned themselves at the starting line, in anticipation of the gun being fired; now that it has been, they’re free to run.
More for ’28 and beyond than ’26 but some States will be able to do so for ’26.
The Left will attempt to make districts into democrat voting areas always. If they can make it Black or Latino or Islam they will do it. The Federal Civil Rights Law does not allow it.
Since 24 the movement has been that Black and Latino has moved Right. There still is issues of voting machines, improper voting roles, and illegals voting. Much of these issues are causing problems with voting and the wrong person getting ballots on both parties.
Gee, I wonder who cast the 3 dissenting votes? Hmmmmmm
Moe, Larry & Curly? 🤔
What about Shep?
Hey, be happy that none of the six conservatives joined them.
I knew this decision was bad, bad, bad for democrats when I opened my inbox and found a screaming email alert from the NYT telling me how awful this decision is for “muh democrahseh”
You gave the NYT your email address?! What were you thinking?
This is interesting:
So the court has in fact expanded the number of “compelling interests” that justify official racial discrimination from two to three. Compliance with §2 does now justify racist distributions — but only “as properly construed”. The problem with the LA distribution wasn’t that compliance with §2 isn’t a valid exception, it’s merely that they (and everyone else) were misreading §2. In those cases (if any) where §2 does require a racially based district, that now has the court’s stamp of approval.
I think Alito did that to cover the opposite (and, IMO, more likely) case in which districts are deliberately drawn to divide a minority concentrated in a compact geographic area that might logically be a single district into multiple districts. It may also, hopefully, kill the sometimes floated plans of states implementing ‘at large’ or ‘vote for x out of y’ Congressional districts.
Good news as it allows all of the red states to redistrict NOW to get rid of their majority minority districts. What I wonder is if it also opens the door to lawsuits to force blue states to get rid of some of their more ridiculous gerrymanders.
No, because they will say we didn’t do this for racial reasons, we did it to get as much partisan advantage as we could, which is perfectly fine as far as federal law is concerned; it may or may not be fine according to state law.
The districts should be overlap the state counties or parishes and be relatively boxy, Anything that isn’t should be disallowed.
Look at the district map above. Only the purple district is acceptable. The rest are contrived and are not.
That doesn’t work because counties and parishes are state creations; all such a rule would mean is that after you’ve decided where you want your districts to go you have to redraw all the parish and county boundaries that your map crosses. Which you can do, but for what purpose?
Backwards. Draw the districts on top of existing parish/county which are much less likely to snake all over the map. The purpose is to avoid warping districts for obvious gerrymandering purposes.
Yes, but you can’t make a rule like that, because the county/parish map is entirely something the state invented and can change at will.
That’s why SCOTUS struck down state constitutions that gave equal representation in the upper house to all counties, regardless of population, by analogy with the US Senate. The court correctly pointed out that this is a false analogy, because the USA is a federation of states, while a state is not a federation of counties. The states created the USA; the states also create the counties. So if a state chooses to divide itself into unequal counties, it can’t then give them equal representation. If it wants equal representation for counties the answer is simple: redraw the counties to be equal.
Using existing political boundaries is already a part of the presumptively unobjectionable criteria as is ‘compactness’. Obviously each County has different population but where it is possible to keep County whole v split between CD that’s more/less already baked into the process. The change will be removing ‘race’ from drawing minority majority districts. That factor alone threw off ripple effects that and out weighed other factors, so with that element gone we should see more ‘compact’ districts that adhere far more closely to political and natural geographical boundaries. Though politicians are involved so ….
I hope Maryland is paying attention.
So this article is about Louisiana. It takes care to point out that a recent redistricting change in California will flip districts to Democrats. Yet, not a word about which way this court ruling flips districts in Louisiana.
Well obviously it sends LA back to the previous map that the lower court struck down for only having one black-majority seat when it could have had two. That’s what the case was all about.
LA drew a map that had one district with a black majority, and therefore Dem; the Dems claimed, and the district court agreed, that since it was possible to draw a second such district, the VRA required this to be done, so LA went back and did it. That’s what SCOTUS has now overturned. There is no requirement to deliberately draw black-majority districts just because you can, and therefore it’s illegal to do so. Thus the latest map with two such districts is struck down, so we’re back to the previous map that had only one such district.
The GOP in California should now refile its lawsuit, since SCOTUS has just endorsed its premise. SCOTUS denied cert at the time, perhaps because it knew that this was coming.
And this ruling also endorses the GOP position in Texas, where the challenge was precisely that the redistricting was caused by an incorrect (so the district court claimed) view that “majority minority” districts are illegal. Well, now SCOTUS has said that view was in fact correct.
That’s because it isn’t obvious how any new district will vote when all races are in one district. I persoally think the SCOTUS should step in and demand that all states redistrict according to common interest of each district and not attempting to make them one party or the other. A large city will have totally different issues than rural areas so why should they vote together on issues? A costal district will have issues that an inland district never fraces. A farm community will have issues that urban districts will never see. That’s what the original districts were based on.
On what basis could SCOTUS possibly demand that?
CA Republicans should re-file their case and ask for it to be heard again in light of this ruling in the Callais case.
CA Democrats were very open about the fact that they were drawing their district lines based on race.
No, they weren’t open about it. In fact they openly denied it. But the mapmaker they hired to draw the actual lines let the cat out of the bag. He said that he took race into account and the Dems were all “We never told him to do that, that’s all on him”.