By John Kruzel and Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Monday to hear a bid by Louisiana officials and civil rights groups to preserve an electoral map that raised the number of Black-majority congressional districts in the state and prompted a challenge by non-Black voters.
State officials and advocacy groups have appealed a lower court’s ruling that found the map laying out Louisiana’s six U.S. House of Representatives districts – with two Black-majority districts, up from one previously – violated the U.S. Constitution’s promise of equal protection.
Black people comprise nearly a third of Louisiana’s population.
The Supreme Court restored the map for use in the 2024 election.
Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration had largely backed the effort to preserve the Louisiana map containing two Black-majority districts, but that position was dropped by Donald Trump’s administration four days into the Republican president’s new term that began in January.
The boundaries of legislative districts across the country are redrawn to reflect population changes every decade. The long-running Louisiana case is the latest in a series of legal disputes to reach the Supreme Court over racial issues arising during this redistricting process.
The dispute involves tensions between protecting minority voting rights under federal law and adhering to the principle of equal protection, which limits the use of race in redistricting.
In June 2022, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ruled that a map adopted earlier that year by the Republican-controlled Louisiana legislature containing only a single Black-majority congressional district in the state had unlawfully harmed Black voters. Black voters tend to support Democratic candidates.
Dick concluded that the map likely violated the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 U.S. law that bars racial discrimination in voting, and ordered the addition of a second Black-majority congressional district.
The Supreme Court in 2023 left Dick’s ruling in place.
The state legislature in January 2024 approved a new map featuring two House districts where Black voters would represent the majority of voters, rather than just one.
Later that month, a group of 12 Louisiana voters identifying themselves in court papers as “non-African American” sued to block the redrawn map. A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not respond to requests to provide the racial breakdown of the plaintiffs.
A three-judge panel in a 2-1 ruling in April 2024 blocked the map as an unlawful “racial gerrymander.” The panel decided that the manner in which the districts were drawn violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment equal protection provision, finding that the legislature relied too heavily on race in the map’s design.
The amendment, ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the American Civil War, addressed issues relating to the rights of formerly enslaved Black people.
Gerrymandering involves the manipulation of the geographical boundaries of electoral districts to marginalize a certain set of voters and increase the influence of others. In this case, the judicial panel sided with the plaintiffs who claimed the disputed Louisiana map unlawfully reduced the influence of non-Black voters.
The panel had directed Louisiana’s legislature to devise a new map by June 3, though the Supreme Court stepped in to allow the disputed map to be used in the 2024 election. Republicans retained a narrow majority in the House and currently control both chambers of Congress.
In their Supreme Court appeal, Louisiana officials had urged the justices to approve the disputed map and finally resolve the long-running litigation.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
