March 24, 2025, 6:14 p.m.
Redistricting returned to the Supreme Court on Monday as the high court heard arguments over Louisiana's current congressional map. The outcome of the case could have a major ripple effect on future race-based redistricting cases and could impact several existing maps across the South.
At issue Monday was whether the current lines, drawn by the GOP-dominated state Legislature after a court order, were predominantly the result of racial considerations or political considerations. A federal court found last year that the new, remedial map was a racial gerrymander and violated the Constitution.
Louisiana has found itself at the center of racial gerrymandering cases over the past few years. The hearing Monday was the latest chapter of a battle to overturn the current lines: two majority-minority seats and a split of four Republican seats to two Democratic seats.
The state Legislature in 2022 enacted a plan that contained just one majority-Black seat in 2022 following the apportionment period. A federal judge found that the lines violated the Voting Rights Act and ordered a new map to better represent Black voters, who make up one-third of the state’s population. The Supreme Court stayed the ruling while it considered a similar case in Alabama, Allen v. Milligan. When the Supreme Court affirmed Voting Rights Act protections in Alabama’s case, the high court sent the Louisiana case back to the lower court and the lines were used for the 2024 election.
Plaintiffs in the case alleged that the Legislature used race as the principal consideration in drawing their map. Debate from the bench focused on the tension between complying with a court order and violating the Equal Protection Clause, which bars discrimination on the basis of race. In a case of lawsuits making strange bedfellows, the civil rights groups that originally sued the state to implement a second majority-minority district were on the same side as state officials defending the 2024 map.
“I guess I’m still a little confused why it matters why the court order was right or not,” asked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson during debate whether a previous court had erred in its ruling. “You are still being compelled by the court to do what you did in this case, correct?”
Attorneys for the state opened their argument saying that their decision to draw their remedial line—a long, winding district that snakes from Shreveport to Baton Rouge—was based purely on politics, not race. The second majority-minority seat came at the expense of dismantling the stronghold of Republican former Rep. Garret Graves, an adversary of Gov. Jeff Landry, and a lower court ruled that the state had racially gerrymandered.
Louisiana's current redistricting status
National Journal Presentation Center
“In an election year we faced a prospect of a federal court-drawn map that placed in jeopardy the speaker of the House, the House majority leader, and our representative on the House Appropriations Committee,” Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga, arguing on behalf of the state, said before the Court. “In light of those facts, we made a politically rational decision. We drew our own map to protect them.”
Not every judge seemed keen on that explanation, though, with some questioning how to reconcile a race-conscious district.
“Isn’t saying race is one consideration saying that race predominated? How do we square that with the 14th Amendment promise that race should play no role in our laws?” asked Justice Neil Gorsuch.
“The Court has long recognized that legislators are always aware of race,” said Stuart Naifeh, an attorney representing Black Louisiana voters. “The fact that race was one thing they were considering when they drew the map does not mean it was the predominant thing.”
The plaintiffs argued that the configuration of the newly drawn district, which traverses the middle of the state, does not meet traditional redistricting criteria established by the Court, which include compactness of a district, an argument Justice Samuel Alito seemed open to.
“The question is whether or not there is a minority population that is sufficiently compact to be included in a district that sufficiently respects traditional districting lines, not whether once you have identified bits of a minority population, it is possible to draw a district that is compact,” Alito said.
Gorsuch also appeared skeptical of the geography, even if the state was compelled to draw a map that satisfied the Voting Rights Act. Chief Justice John Roberts, a potential swing vote on Voting Rights Act cases, echoed these sentiments. Naifeh responded that “representatives represent people,” rendering geography a non-issue in this consideration.
Much of oral arguments focused on what the Supreme Court has established as “breathing room,” which gives leeway for states to balance the considerations of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. Defendants sought clarity on the extent of that breathing room, and the Court’s liberal justices expressed support for the idea that states should be able to comply with a court order and not violate the Constitution.
“This state used breathing room to say that after we litigated this and litigated it again,” Justice Elena Kagan said of the multiple lawsuits on the map, “we knew we were going to lose … so it was time to get on with things and draw our map that served our political objectives.”
Outside, advocates and activists were optimistic about the Court overturning the lower court’s ruling. The small but passionate crowd withstood the rain and the cool D.C. temperatures in support of what they believe to be fair maps.
Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, told National Journal outside the Court she believed the plaintiffs were attempting to relitigate the case that concluded “in 2022 and led to the new map in 2024.”
“It was almost like there were two conversations happening past one another,” she said.
The hearing also brought a coalition of Southern voting-rights groups to rally outside the Supreme Court.
Anneshia Hardy, the executive director of Alabama Values, said she has to “believe in [her] heart that the courts will stand on the principles of democracy, fair representation, and fair maps.”
“The Black voters in Louisiana, the population, shows that they deserve additional representation," Hardy told National Journal.
The Court is likely to issue its decision sometime toward the end of its term in June. The ruling could have major implications for the future of Voting Rights Act-based cases. In the 2023 Alabama case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that race-based redistricting could not extend indefinitely into the future. Kavanaugh concurred with voting-rights groups in that case, but if he were to flip, it could drastically hamstring legal challenges to congressional maps.
The justice didn’t seem too interested in litigating that Monday, though.
“You haven’t mentioned that so far,” Kavanaugh said of the plaintiffs’ lead argument in their brief about an end to race-based redistricting. “The other side said that argument’s been forfeited. … The fact that you haven’t mentioned it so far certainly supports what they’re saying on that."
