Overview
- Luisiana filed a new brief abandoning its defense of the 2024 map and arguing that race-based districting is unconstitutional even for Voting Rights Act compliance.
- State lawyers urged the justices to deem Section 2 and the Gingles framework unlawful or unworkable, asserting that the Constitution forbids race-conscious line drawing.
- The Supreme Court ordered supplemental briefing and asked whether Louisiana’s intentional creation of a second majority‑minority district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments.
- NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the ACLU, and other voting‑rights groups filed briefs defending Section 2 and asked the Court to reinstate the remedial map or direct a new remedy for the proven vote‑dilution violation.
- Lower courts previously found Louisiana’s 2022 map likely diluted Black voting power, a three‑judge panel later struck down the 2024 remedial plan as a racial gerrymander, and experts warn a ruling for Louisiana could reduce majority‑Black districts nationwide.