Case Summary
The Louisiana State Legislature created a new congressional map in 2024 with two majority-Black districts after a prior map was struck down for violating the rights of Black Louisiana voters and violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The new remedial map led to a historic election in a state where nearly one in three voters is Black. However, litigation filed by white Louisiana voters is challenging these maps, with claims that the maps are also violating their voting rights as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the racial gerrymandering case on Nov. 4, 2024. The parties await an oral argument date.
Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed an amicus brief Dec. 26, 2024 on behalf of three expert historians of Louisiana and the greater American South - Dr. John Bardes of Louisiana State University, Dr. R. Blakeslee Gilpin of Tulane University, and Dr. Adam Fairclough of Leiden University (Emeritus).
The historians' amicus brief explains why Louisiana's Congressional District 6 is a historic community of interest in the state, and that the lower court's disregard for lay testimony about this community when it struck down the remedial map was ahistorical and clear error.
Why it's Important
The Louisiana State Legislature passed Senate Bill 8 to create a Congressional map with two majority Black-districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and protect the rights of Black Louisiana voters a Congressional map. The 2024 map created a second majority-Black district, Congressional District 6, united by the Interstate- 49 corridor and the Red River.
Louisiana's Black voters, who make up nearly a third of the state, fought long and hard, with their counsel, to have an equal opportunity to elect a member of Congress when they go to the ballot box. The federal district court's subsequent ruling rejecting this remedial map was based on a flawed analysis of communities of interest and should not stand.
