Supreme Court punts Louisiana’s long-contested congressional map to the fall

Louisiana argued that it was caught in an impossible position: At first, a federal court ruled that the state had likely violated the Voting Rights Act by drawing only one majority Black district out of six.

The Supreme Court punted on Friday in a major legal challenge to Louisiana’s long-litigated congressional map, taking the unusual step of holding the case over for a second term. The decision means the sprawling district that added a second Black and Democratic lawmaker to the state’s overwhelmingly Republican delegation will remain in place, at least for the time being. The court said it will hear another set of arguments about the questions raised in the case in the term that begins this fall. Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative, dissented from the decision to hold the appeal over until next term. Louisiana filed the appeal, arguing that it was caught in an impossible position: At first, a federal court ruled that the state had likely violated the Voting Rights Act by drawing only one majority Black district out of six. When the state sought to comply with that decision by drawing a second majority Black district, a group of self-described “non-Black voters” sued, alleging the state violated the Constitution by relying too much on race to meet the first court’s demands. “Congress requires this court to exercise jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to congressional redistricting, and we accordingly have an obligation to resolve such challenges promptly,” Thomas wrote in his dissent.