A majority of the Supreme Court appeared ready on Monday to allow Louisiana to continue using a congressional voting map that includes two majority-Black districts in the state.
The question before the court: Did Louisiana lawmakers improperly rely on race when they drafted the map?
The case could not only shift the boundaries of majority-Black districts in Louisiana but also help determine the balance of power in the House of Representatives in the coming years, when political control of the chamber has frequently rested on thin margins.
Using the new map to hold elections in 2024, Louisiana elected a second Black Democrat, Cleo Fields — the first time in a decade that Democrats have held two congressional seats in the state.
The case could also guide other states in balancing how much the Constitution allows them to take race into account as they try to comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The law remains a central legislative achievement of the civil rights era, though its scope has been curtailed in recent years by the court’s conservative majority.
The justices heard arguments on Monday in two consolidated cases — Louisiana v. Callais, No. 24-109 and Robinson v. Callais, No. 24-110. They stemmed from years of litigation that began after the 2020 census showed a sharp increase in the state’s Black population.
When lawmakers adopted a map that included only one majority-Black district despite the shift, the Louisiana State Conference of the N.A.A.C.P., the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice and several individual Black voters successfully sued. They argued that under the Voting Rights Act, the state should be required to draw a map with two majority-Black districts so that voters in those communities would have the chance to elect politicians of their choice. A federal judge found that Black voters in Louisiana often supported the same candidate but were consistently outvoted by white bloc voting.
After lawmakers eventually drew a map with two majority-Black districts, another lawsuit followed. This challenge, which was heard by the justices Monday, was brought by a group of “non-African American” voters who argued that the state’s map violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause with “a sinuous and jagged second majority-Black district based on racial stereotypes.”
A lawyer for Louisiana told the justices that the state was a reluctant player in the fight over its map.
“Louisiana would rather not be here,” the state’s solicitor general, J. Benjamin Aguiñaga, told the justices.
Mr. Aguiñaga was adamant that politics, not race, led to the current map. He asked the justices to look at “the larger picture” for lawmakers, who were facing pressure from a federal court to add a second majority-Black district. He said they were concerned that had they allowed a court to draw the map, judges could have drawn districts that made it difficult for high-profile lawmakers to be re-elected. Among them: Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House.
“We made the politically rational decision,” he said. “We drew our own map to protect them.”
The second majority-Black district, which meanders from the state’s southeast to its northwest, following the Red River, a major tributary of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers, drew vivid descriptions from the justices for its awkward shape.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who along with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., appeared deeply skeptical of a role for race in drawing the lines of political power, called it a snake, “squiggling from one end of the state to the other.”
But despite the district’s odd shape, there appeared to be deep disagreement among the justices about whether it was gerrymandered on the basis of race or mere politics.
In an exchange with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a lawyer for the Redistricting Project at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Stuart C. Naifeh, argued that a map initially proposed by a group of Black voters who had sought a second majority-Black district was of a more normal shape and size.
Lawmakers rejected that map in favor of their snake-shaped district — a sign, Mr. Naifeh said, that the Legislature had created the map because of politics.
“What I hear you saying is the reason why we’re looking at a snakelike map rather than the compact map is because of political considerations,” Justice Jackson said.
“Politics is the only reason that the state chose that map over the compact maps” that were proposed by the group of Black voters, Mr. Naifeh said.
But Justice Gorsuch noted that even if lawmakers had accepted the more compact map, they would have been allowing race to play a role in their process. He questioned whether that was appropriate.
“Isn’t saying race is one consideration another way of saying race predominated?” Justice Gorsuch asked. “And how do we square that with the 14th Amendment’s promise that race should play no role?”
“In the redistricting context, this court has long recognized that legislators are always aware of race,” Mr. Naifeh said. “The fact that race was one thing they were considering when they drew the map does not mean it was the predominant thing.”
The argument had echoes of another case that the justices heard just two years ago, a dispute over Alabama’s congressional map. In that case, Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court ruled that Alabama had diluted the power of Black voters with its map, upholding the Voting Rights Act.
The majority in that case included Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. In a concurring opinion, however, Justice Kavanaugh questioned how much longer the country needed to allow race to play a role in redistricting. He wrote that it was possible that “the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.”
He posed the question again in the Louisiana argument, wondering how that same principle might apply in that case.
“The court’s long said that race-based remedial action must have a logical endpoint, must be limited in time, must be a temporary matter,” Justice Kavanaugh said, pointing to the court’s decision to strike down affirmative action in higher education.
The argument on Monday was the second time the justices had wrestled with the Louisiana case. In May, a divided Supreme Court paused a lower court decision, allowing the new map, with its second majority-Black district, to be used in the November 2024 election.
If the justices reject that map and with it the idea that states should have “breathing room” in drawing maps, Louisiana’s lawyer argued, the dispute will just come right back to the court.
“With all due respect, we’d rather not be back at the podium this fall defending a new map against a new challenge,” Mr. Aguiñaga said.
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