NRF-Supported Plaintiffs Call on SCOTUS to Permanently Reinstate Louisiana’s Voting Rights Act-Compliant Map

For Immediate Release
July 30, 2024
Contact
Madia Coleman
coleman@redistrictingfoundation.org

Washington, D.C. —  Today, voters supported by the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF), the 501(c)(3) affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, submitted a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court kicking off the appeals process of the lower court’s decision in Callais v. Landry, which wrongly struck down Louisiana’s Voting Rights Act (VRA)-compliant map. The Supreme Court will review this direct appeal in the next term. The NRF has provided legal and financial support to these voters in their efforts to protect Louisiana’s VRA-compliant map, and will continue to do so as they make their case before the Supreme Court.

“Powerful special interests opposed to free and fair elections in this country have long been working to weaken the protections enshrined in the Voting Rights Act, and they must be stopped,” said Marina Jenkins, Executive Director of the NRF. “The lower court’s ideologically-driven decision in this case to block Louisiana’s fair and representative map was wildly out of step with multiple recent court decisions upholding the Voting Rights Act and determining that Louisiana’s congressional map must have two Black opportunity districts in order to comply with the Voting Rights Act—and it must be reversed.”

“Just last year, in Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court upheld Section 2 of the VRA. Anything short of permanently reinstating Louisiana’s Voting Rights Act-compliant map would be a head-spinning reversal of the justices’ own precedent,” added Jenkins. 

The NRF initiated the successful lawsuit that struck down Louisiana's 2022 congressional map for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and led to the enactment of a new VRA-compliant map for Louisiana, which includes two new Black opportunity districts. Following a disastrous lower-court decision in Callais v. Landry to strike down the state’s new map, the NRF filed an emergency stay request to the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to block that decision while the case is appealed—and the Court did so. As a result, Louisiana’s VRA-compliant map will remain in place for the 2024 election. 

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