US Supreme Court wrestles with Louisiana electoral map with more Black-majority districts

By John Kruzel, Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court grappled on Monday with a bid by Louisiana officials and civil rights groups to preserve an electoral map that raised the number of Black-majority congressional districts in the state and prompted a challenge by non-Black voters.

The justices heard arguments in an appeal by state officials and advocacy groups of a lower court's 2024 ruling that found that the map delineating Louisiana's six U.S. House of Representatives districts - with two Black-majority districts, up from one previously - violated the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment promise of equal protection. 

Black people comprise nearly a third of Louisiana's population.

Louisiana argued on Monday that the map was not impermissibly drawn by its Republican-controlled state legislature with race as the primary motivation, as the lower court found last year. The map's design, Louisiana said, also sought to protect Republican incumbents including House Speaker Mike Johnson and No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise, who both represent congressional districts in the state.

Black voters tend to support Democratic candidates.

"In an election year we faced the prospect of a federal court-drawn map that placed in jeopardy the speaker of the House, the House majority leader and our representative on the Appropriations Committee," Benjamin Aguinaga, solicitor general of Louisiana, told the justices. "And so in light of those facts, we made the politically rational decision. We drew our own map to protect them."

The dispute involves tensions between protecting minority voting rights and adhering to the principle of equal protection, which limits the use of race in redistricting.

Monday's arguments centered on Louisiana's response to U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick's 2022 finding that an earlier map likely violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark law barring racial discrimination in voting, and whether the state relied too heavily on race in devising a remedial map adding a second Black-majority district.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor appeared skeptical of the lower court's 2024 finding that race had predominated in the map's design.

"We have also said very clearly that if two reasons coexist, race and politics, that 50/50 means that race doesn't predominate, correct?" Sotomayor asked Aguinaga.

LOOKS LIKE A SNAKE

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether the unusual geographic boundaries of the second Black-majority district - which he said resembled a snake - meant that race had motivated its configuration.

"You think the drawing of this district was not predominantly based on race?" Roberts asked Stuart Naifeh of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who argued on behalf of Black Louisiana voters.

"It runs from one side of the state angling up to the other, picking up Black populations as it goes along," Roberts said.

Boundaries of legislative districts across the country are redrawn to reflect population changes every decade.

In June 2022, Dick ruled that a map adopted earlier that year by the legislature containing only one Black-majority congressional district had unlawfully harmed Black voters. Dick concluded that the map likely violated the Voting Rights Act and ordered the addition of a second Black-majority district.

The Supreme Court in 2023 left Dick's ruling in place.

Louisiana's legislature in January 2024 approved a new map featuring two Black-majority districts. Later that month, a group of 12 Louisiana voters identifying themselves in court papers as "non-African American" sued to block the redrawn map. A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not respond to requests to provide the racial breakdown of the plaintiffs.

A three-judge panel in a 2-1 ruling in April 2024 blocked the map, finding that the legislature relied too heavily on race in the map's design in violation of the Constitution's equal protection provision. 

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch probed the degree to which the map relied upon race in drawing the boundaries of the various districts. Gorsuch pressed Naifeh after the lawyer said race was one consideration in the map's design.

"Isn't saying race was one consideration another way of saying race predominated?" Gorsuch asked. "And how do we square that with the 14th Amendment's promise that race should play no role in our laws?"

The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the American Civil War, addressed issues relating to the rights of formerly enslaved Black people.

Naifeh said that the Supreme Court in prior decisions allowed states leeway in how to remedy a likely Voting Rights Act violation.

Some of the court's conservative justices probed the soundness of Dick's 2022 ruling finding a likely Voting Rights Act violation that had set in motion the remedial map-making effort in the first place.

The Supreme Court previously allowed the map to be used in the 2024 election. A ruling is expected by the end of June.

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)