NRF Statement on Supreme Court Ruling to Allow Louisiana Elections to Proceed Under Unlawful Map
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Jena Doyle
Doyle@redistrictingfoundation.org
NRF Statement on Supreme Court Ruling to Allow Louisiana Elections to Proceed Under Unlawful Map
Washington, D.C. —Today, the Supreme Court of the United States put on hold a federal district court order blocking the use of the congressional map drawn by Louisiana’s legislature for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and requiring the immediate redraw of the state’s congressional map to contain two districts allowing Black voters to elect their candidate of choice instead of only one. The Court further agreed to take the case for consideration, though is holding the case in abeyance until it decides Merrill v. Milligan, a Section 2 challenge to Alabama’s congressional map.
“The Supreme Court’s unjustified and unexplained decision to obstruct the straightforward application of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana—using the shadow docket to block a decision that would have rectified the state’s abject failure to provide Black Louisianians with full and equal treatment under existing federal law—is despicable,” said Marina Jenkins, Director of Litigation and Policy for the National Redistricting Foundation. “As the lower court found, Louisiana’s Republican lawmakers drew a congressional map that clearly violated the rights of Black voters, yet the Supreme Court has once again shown its open hostility to long-held precedent and long-held rights to stand in the way of that decision and its remedy.”
On June 6 a federal district court in Louisiana blocked the state from using the new congressional map after determining that plaintiffs supported by the NRF in Galmon v. Ardoin were likely to succeed in proving that the map dilutes the voting power of the state’s Black communities in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. After the Louisiana Legislature failed to enact a compliant remedial map, the court scheduled a hearing on plaintiffs’ proposed plan, which has since been canceled in response to today’s order from the Supreme Court. The 2022 election will proceed under the congressional map passed by the Louisiana Legislature.
The order can be found here.
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