US Supreme Court hears arguments over Louisiana electoral map News
Quercusvirginiana, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
US Supreme Court hears arguments over Louisiana electoral map

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday over a challenge to Louisiana’s recently redrawn voting map and its two Black-majority districts.

Plaintiffs claimed that the map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The civil rights era statute aimed to end voter suppression practices in southern states and specifically prohibits “the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color.”

Defendants, comprised of Louisiana officials and civil rights advocates, responded that the map was created following a judicial instruction to correct violations of a previous district map.

“Louisiana would rather not be here,” state attorney J. Benjamin Aguiñaga said in his opening statements. “We didn’t want to be in the emergency docket… we would rather not be caught between… opposed visions of what our congressional map should look like. But this has became life as usual for the states under this Court’s voting cases.”

The current voting map was created following a 2022 district court decision that struck down a previous state congressional map. That court, bolstered by the Supreme Court, held that the state unlawfully gerrymandered districts based on race, noting that, of the state’s six districts, only one “packed” district was predominantly Black, despite Blacks accounting for roughly a third of Louisiana’s population. The court ordered the state to redraw the map to include more Black-majority districts as a remedy.

The state complied and increased the number of Black-majority districts to two. However, multiple plaintiffs challenged the new map, arguing that it was specifically drawn with race in mind. A district court ruled in favor of plaintiffs, but the Supreme Court stayed the order in May, allowing the map to be used for the 2024 elections.

It is unclear how the court will rule in the case. Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared to signal that the map was politically, not racially, motivated. However, Chief Justice John Roberts appeared hesitant to accept that view, noting one district’s odd, snake-like shape.

“And you think the drawing of this district was not predominantly based on race?” Roberts said during a back and forth with defense counsel. “I mean, it runs from one side of the state angling up to the other, picking up populations — Black populations as it goes along.”

The court is slated to issue a final opinion in May or June.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Rosenbergs convicted of espionage

On March 29, 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of passing US atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. The couple was sentenced to death on April 3 under the Espionage Act of 1917, 18 U.S.C 794. They were then executed two years later on June 19, 1953 in New York State's Sing Sing Prison. View the FBI's files on the Rosenbergs.

British parliament passed act creating Canada

On March 29, 1867, the British Parliament passed the British North America Act, a constitutional document creating a united Dominion of Canada. It went into effect on July 1 that year.