What happened
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to adjudicate a long-running fight over Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District, which one federal court ordered to be redrawn as a majority-Black district and a second federal court tried to undo. Black people make up about a third of Louisiana’s population, but only one of its six House members is Black.
Who said what
Louisiana’s Republican-controlled Legislature created only one majority-Black congressional district after the 2020 Census, but a court found that the map “diluted the power of Black voters” and ordered it redrawn, Politico said. When the Legislature approved a second map in January with two majority-Black districts, a “group of self-described ‘non-African American voters’ sued,” The Washington Post said, and a divided three-judge panel agreed the new map was “an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.”
The Supreme Court blocked that ruling and said Louisiana must use the map with two Black districts in the 2024 election. The high court will now hopefully resolve this “absurdly messy” case, Vox said. The eventual ruling “could reshape how states interpret the Voting Rights Act in drawing voting maps” with race in mind, The New York Times said.
What next?
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) decided not to seek reelection in the new 6th District, and Democrats are hopeful their candidate Cleo Fields can flip the “once reliably Republican” seat in this “critical election year” where either party could win control of the House, The Associated Press said. The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments “early next year” and issue its ruling in “late June or early July,” SCOTUSblog said.