A battle in the Supreme Court appears likely after three federal judges rejected Louisiana’s new congressional district map that gave the state a second majority-black House district.
The three-judge panel ruled 2-1 on Tuesday that the state cannot use the voting district map that was drawn up in January. The judges agreed with the plaintiffs, who claimed that the map constituted racial gerrymandering and thus violated the Constitution.
“The predominate role of race in the State’s decisions is reflected in the statements of legislative decision-makers, the division of cities and parishes along racial lines, the unusual shape of the district, and the evidence that the contours of the district were drawn to absorb sufficient numbers of Black-majority neighborhoods to achieve the goal of a functioning majority-Black district,” U.S. District Judges David Joseph and Robert Summerhays wrote in
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