NEW ORLEANS– Voting rights advocates said Wednesday they will go to the Supreme Court in hopes of preserving a new majority-black congressional district in Louisiana for the fall elections, the latest step in a complicated legal battle that could determine the fate of political careers and the balance of power. in the next congress.
A divided panel of federal judges on Tuesday rejected a map approved in January by an unusual alliance of Republicans, who dominate the Legislature, and Democrats who want a second, mostly black — and mostly Democratic — congressional district.
Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill said she would appeal the ruling on Tuesday. And a coalition of individuals and civil rights groups filed a formal notice Wednesday saying they will go to the Supreme Court.
Jared Evans, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, said attorneys will ask the Supreme Court by the end of the week to uphold the new maps for 2024, pending further legal action. He mentioned the need to have district maps ready soon. State election officials have said they need to know by May 15 which maps to use for the fall elections.
The same judicial panel that rejected the new map — often referred to by bill number SB8 — hosted a status conference Monday to discuss what the state should do next. Evans said there are numerous options, including appointing a special master to draw a map or giving the Legislature another chance. But Evans said time is running out.
“At this point, with the election six months away, the Supreme Court is going to have to step in and say whether SB8 can move forward or not,” Evans said.
Republican Governor Jeff Landry, meanwhile, expressed frustration with the process.
“The continued inconsistency of the federal courts is remarkable and disappointing,” Landry said Wednesday in Baton Rouge. “The people of Louisiana deserve better from our federal courts. Either the legislature has control over the drawing of a map or the federal courts have control, but you can’t have both!’
Landry, a former attorney general, had championed a 2022 map with only one majority-black district out of six. But in a lawsuit filed by Baton Rouge, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick blocked use of the 2022 map, saying it likely violated the federal Voting Rights Act, with boundary lines dividing Black voters among five mostly white districts . The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later gave lawmakers a deadline to come up with a new map.
Landry, who became governor in January, urged the Legislature to draw a new map rather than leave it to the federal courts. With Landry’s support, SB8 was passed.
But a group of 12 self-identified non-African American voters has filed a lawsuit in western Louisiana against the new district, which cuts across the state to connect Black populations in four disparate metropolitan areas from the Northwest to the Southeast . They said it was drawn with race as the overriding motivation.
Two members of a three-judge panel appointed to hear that constitutional challenge sided with the plaintiffs and settled the pending challenge in the Supreme Court. A third judge disagreed, saying evidence showed that political considerations — including protecting the districts of House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republican Leader Steve Scalise — had been a major motivation.
The new map sacrificed the district of Republican incumbent Garret Graves, who endorsed a Republican opponent of Landry in last year’s governor’s race. State Senator Cleo Fields, a former Black Democratic Party congresswoman, has said he will run for the seat.
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Associated Press reporter Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this story.