Louisiana GOP officials ask U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in fight over congressional map
CBSN
Washington — Republican officials in Louisiana asked the Supreme Court on Friday to step into a long-running dispute over the state's congressional districts after a panel of lower court judges said upcoming elections can't be held under a recently adopted map that included a second majority-Black district.
Top lawyers for the state requested the justices provide emergency relief and halt the ruling issued by the three-judge panel late last month, which found the redistricting plan approved by Louisiana's GOP-led legislature in January was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
That map, which set the lines for the state's six congressional districts was crafted after a federal district court judge in a separate case ordered the creation of a second majority-Black district to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. A redistricting plan drawn by state lawmakers in 2022 following the last Census consisted of five majority-White congressional districts and one majority-Black district, though roughly one-third of the state's population is Black. The judge, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, said in her June 2022 decision that map likely violated the landmark voting law, and she gave state lawmakers the opportunity to come up with a new map that included an additional majority-Black congressional district.
