NEWS: The original challengers to Louisiana's redistricting plan, backed by NAACP Legal Defense Fund, went to the Supreme Court on Wednesday in the latest step in a multi-year fight to get two majority-Black congressional districts in the state.
Although a shadow docket filing, the request raises big questions about the ability of challengers to protect Voting Rights Act redistricting rulings.
Wednesday’s filing asks the justices to allow the state’s S.B. 8 congressional map — which contains two majority-Black districts and was the result of the extensive Voting Rights Act litigation — to be used in the 2024 elections.
[Update, 4:30 p.m.: A response to this application was requested, due by 11 a.m. Monday, May 13.]
A lower court, split 2-1, enjoined its use last week in response to a new challenge, finding that the map’s focus on adhering to the Voting Rights Act violated equal protection guarantees.
In their application, the LDF-backed challengers argue, “It is precisely to preclude cases like this one that the Court recognized the principle that government actors must be given ‘breathing room’ to comply with the VRA, when they have good reason to believe they must, without facing constitutional liability.”
The passage of the Louisiana redistricting map in S.B. 8 followed the June 2023 Supreme Court decision — involving Alabama redistricting — that reaffirmed the use of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to press vote dilution claims like those brought by the LDF-represented challengers here.
In today’s filing at the Supreme Court, the LDF-backed challengers argue that a stay of the injunction — in essence, allowing the S.B. 8 map to be used — is necessary to ensure that the Voting Rights Act violation found to exist under the prior map is not allowed to continue.
“Given the serious legal flaws in the District Court’s injunction, and the risk that remedial proceedings and appellate review cannot be completed sufficiently in advance of the 2024 congressional election to avoid disruption and ensure Applicants’ § 2 rights are vindicated, a stay is appropriate here,” the lawyers write.
