Black voters want congressional map lawsuit moved from GOP-stacked court

A federal redistricting lawsuit both sides hoped to settle when the Louisiana Legislature drew a new congressional map last month saw a new motion filed Tuesday that could keep the case open for some time. 

Black voters, who are plaintiffs in the Robinson v. Landry case, are asking the judge to take jurisdiction over a separate lawsuit a group of white voters filed last week in a conservative-stacked court in Monroe.

The Robinson lawsuit, filed back in 2022, accused Republican state lawmakers of racially gerrymandering the state’s six congressional districts. After two years of defending against those claims in court when he was attorney general, Gov. Jeff Landry changed tactics when he took office in January and ordered lawmakers into a special session to draw a new map with a second majority-Black congressional district, explaining that the state had “exhausted all legal remedies” trying to avoid doing so. Signs pointed to their case being over. 

Landry explained it as a strategic move in response to an order from U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, an appointee of former President Barack Obama to Louisiana’s Middle District Court in Baton Rouge. She had set a Jan. 31 deadline upon which lawmakers had to draw a map with a second majority-minority district or else she would do it for them. 

Aspects of the case had already gone through the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court multiple times with rulings ultimately favoring the plaintiffs. When state lawmakers delivered Landry the new map he asked for, he said, “we took the pen out of the hand of a non-elected judge and placed it in the hands of the people.” 

The new map also dismantled a district held by one of Landry’s political rivals, U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge. Graves endorsed business lobbyist Stephen Waguespack, one of Landry’s competitors last year in the governor’s race.  

In a court filing after the special session, the state notified Dick of the newly enacted map and asserted “this case is now moot.” The plaintiffs, in media interviews, expressed similar sentiments but struck a more cautious tone. 

In a Jan. 29 email, ACLU of Louisiana attorney Nora Ahmed, one of the plaintiffs’ counsels, was reluctant to say the litigation would be settled. When asked if she had heard of any pushback against the new map, Ahmed suggested monitoring the court docket for subsequent filings and said “time will tell what happens next.” 

Two days later, a group of white voters and politicians filed a lawsuit opposing the new map in Louisiana’s Western District, picking its Monroe division. Their court complaint repeats many of the same arguments the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office made over the past two years in defending the old map, according to the filing. 

The white plaintiffs claim, among other things, that the new majority-Black 6th Congressional District is not compact enough and ties together communities from Shreveport and Baton Rouge that are 250 miles apart and have little in common except for race. 

Critics made the same argument over the previous 2022 map. In it, the 5th District winds roughly 300 miles from Morehouse Parish in northeast Louisiana to the town of Franklinton in Washington Parish. They consider the 4th District almost as bad, stretching roughly 240 miles from upper Caddo Parish to Opelousas.

The new lawsuit has 12 plaintiffs who include some familiar Republican names, such as Baton Rouge Business Report founder Rolfe McCollister and Grover Rees, a former diplomat, congressional candidate and member of the Federalist Society. The highly influential conservative organization operates behind the scenes to position its members for the U.S. Supreme Court and other judiciary seats nationwide.       

On Tuesday, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), which represents some of the Black voters in the 2022 lawsuit, filed a motion asking Judge Dick to transfer the new lawsuit to her court in Baton Rouge and allow it to be litigated with their case. In legal terms, it’s called a “first-filed” motion because it is asking the court to apply a rule that states when there are two competing lawsuits, jurisdiction is awarded to the one that was filed first. 

The lead parties in the new lawsuit are plaintiff Phillip Callais and Secretary of State Nancy Landry, the defendant. Callais is a white voter from Brusly whom the new map would move from the 2nd Congressional District to the 6th District

“Callais functionally seeks to revisit many issues this Court has considered, collaterally challenging this Court’s decisions,” the LDF motion states. “Competing judicial opinions on these issues would lead to untenable results.”

If the motion is denied, the Callais case will proceed in a venue that has a pattern of siding with conservative causes. In recent years, Republican attorneys general from across the country have deliberately filed cases in the Monroe court because of the likelihood of getting a Trump-appointed judge who will interpret laws with a conservative bias, according to a Bloomberg Law article. 

It’s a tactic the legal community calls “forum shopping.” Although it’s considered unethical, Democrats have also practiced it in venues such as the U.S. 9th Circuit in San Francisco.

Voters sue over creation of Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district 

The term “judge shopping” is a more targeted version of the tactic that became popular recently after U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of the Monroe division repeatedly sided with Republicans on nationwide injunctions against Biden administration policies.    

Public Service Commissioner Davanté Lewis, a progressive Democrat who is also one of the plaintiffs in the 2022 case, said the Callais lawsuit is an obvious example of forum shopping. 

“Yes, I’m sure that’s why they went to the Western District,” Lewis said. “Trying to see if they can get a more favorable judge.”

A three-judge panel has been assigned to hear the Callais lawsuit. Two of them, Judges Robert Summerhays and David Joseph, are Trump appointees. The third, Judge Carl Stewart from the 5th Circuit, is Black and a Clinton appointee.

“It wasn’t a coincidence that they didn’t file in the court where a case was already pending,” LDF attorney Jared Evans said. 

While the LDF filed its motion in Baton Rouge, attorney Abha Khanna, who represents some of the Black plaintiffs in the 2022 case, simultaneously filed a motion in the Monroe court. She requested permission to intervene as a defendant in Callais v. Landry. Her motion points out that the two opposing sides in Callais were essentially on the same side just a few weeks ago. 

According to the filing, the Callais plaintiffs are making all the same arguments that the state made in Baton Rouge throughout the Robinson litigation. Khanna notes that defendant Secretary of State Nancy Landry, through Attorney General Liz Murrill, is now expected to embrace a legal position they both spent two years attacking at virtually every level of the federal judiciary. 

In a Jan. 15 committee hearing at the start of the special session, Murrill was candid with lawmakers regarding her thoughts on having to possibly defend a map with a second majority-Black district. She assured lawmakers she would defend any map they drew but repeatedly expressed disagreement with the court’s mandate and signaled that she would prefer to continue the 2022 case defending the old map with five majority-white districts.

“I just think that we should have a trial on the merits,” Murrill said. “I have argued that in court. I signed off on those pleadings. I still believe that that is true.”

Having to switch sides would also mean defending a politically liberal cause that could help Democrats gain a seat in the U.S. House where Republicans hold a perilously slim majority. Both Secretary of State Landry, who is not related to the governor, and Murrill are Republicans. By intervening in the case, the Black voters could shore up a strong defense for the new map. 

Although interventions are relatively common in gerrymandering lawsuits, courts don’t always grant them. A federal judge denied intervention by the Alabama Democratic Caucus in a case  last year that, like the Robinson case in Louisiana, challenged a congressional map that did not include a second majority-Black district there. Like Louisiana’s, Alabama’s Black population also merits an additional minority district. 

In Louisiana, the main ruling to watch is on the Legal Defense Fund’s first-filed motion. Its filing notes that if the Callais plaintiffs actually succeed in invalidating the new map, then the plaintiffs in the 2022 case would be entitled to a trial on their Voting Rights Act claims, which the district court judge and a U.S. 5th Circuit panel of judges have already deemed likely to prevail.  

“Ultimately, the 2024 elections will need to be held under a single plan,” the motion states. “Of course, that plan cannot simultaneously respect this Court’s ruling that Louisiana must have a second Black-opportunity district, and the ruling that Callais plaintiffs seek, which might preclude that very same second Black-opportunity district.”

The timing of the competing cases is also important. Qualifying for congressional races in Louisiana takes place in July, and a new map would have to be in place before then in order to avoid races that use the existing U.S. House districts.