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The Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling on Wednesday when they said that redistricting maps could not be based on race. In the case of Louisiana v Callais, the Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to make race a deciding factor in how states configure their congressional districts. The court addressed a redistricting measure in Louisiana that prioritized race in creating a new congressional district, bringing the state's number of black-majority districts to two.
At issue was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and in their ruling, the Court said that Section 2 of that law "was designed to enforce the Constitution—not collide with it. Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court's §2 precedents in a way that forces states to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids." In this case, the Court looked at a lower court ruling that said in 2022, Louisiana violated the Voting Rights Act by not having a second black-majority district.
So the state redrew their map to create a second black-majority district. When they did so, the map was challenged for being created based on race, and a court ruled that the new map, with two black districts, violated the Equal Protection Clause. Louisiana appealed, and the whole thing ended up in Washington before the highest bench. Alito said in his opinion that for 30 years, the Court has "assumed for the sake of argument" that compliance with the Voting Rights Act "provides a compelling reason that may justify the intentional use of race in drawing legislative districts."
It was this matter that the Supreme Court was attempting to solve. Alito wrote: "...the time had come to resolve whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act can indeed provide a compelling reason for race-based districting. We now answer that question: Compliance with §2, as properly construed, can provide such a reason. Correctly understood, §2 does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map. Compliance with §2 thus could not justify the State’s use of race-based redistricting here. The State’s attempt to satisfy the Middle District’s ruling, although understandable, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, and we therefore affirm the decision below."
In his concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas said "This Court should never have interpreted §2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to effectively give racial groups..." He quoted a previous case, Holder v. Hall from 1994, which said 'Blacks [we]re drawn into ‘black districts’ and given "black representatives’; Hispanics [we]re drawn into Hispanic districts and given ‘Hispanic representatives’; and so on.' That interpretation rendered §2 'repugnant to any nation that strives for the ideal of a color-blind Constitution.' Today’s decision should largely put an end to this 'disastrous misadventure' in voting-rights jurisprudence."
Lots of people were mad about it, calling it a politically motivated ruling. President Trump said "I love it." House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries vowed to pack the court with liberal justices should Democrats take back the House. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry may put the primaries on hold and take some time to redraw the maps.
Libby