Federal judges order Louisiana Legislature to draw yet another congressional map

A panel of three federal judges has ordered the Louisiana Legislature to take another stab at drawing the state’s congressional districts, the latest update in a years-long saga that has seen lawmakers adopt two maps that have run into court obstacles.

The order, handed down Tuesday, is the latest update in the case Callais v. Landry, in which a group of non-Black voters sued over the creation of a second majority-Black congressional district. They contend the map, signed into law after a five-day special legislative session convened in January at Gov. Jeff Landry’s direction, constitutes an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and violates the 14th and 15th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The three judge panel voted 2-1 in favor of the plaintiffs. The two judges who sided with the plaintiffs are federal court appointees of former President Donald Trump, while the dissenter was a nominee of former President Bill Clinton.

In a press release, Attorney General Liz Murrill, who defended the map, slammed the court’s decision.

“Today, three federal judges who never spent a day running an election have ignored uncontradicted testimony that we need a map by May 15, and once again turned Louisiana’s Congressional elections upside down,” Murill said. “At a time when concerns about election integrity are higher than ever, this ruling threatens the ability of the Secretary of State to conduct a stable and fair election in a presidential election year in Louisiana. We will be heading this week to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The judges gave the Legislature until the end of their ongoing lawmaking session on June 3 to draw a new map. This timeframe disregards the May 15 deadline set by Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry, a defendant in the case who said the maps had to be finalized by then in order for new districts to be used in the November election.

The ruling notes the state said during arguments that it could use a map for the fall election that’s adopted by the end of May.

Other parties in the case will also be allowed to submit proposed maps, and the 5th Circuit panel will come up with its own boundaries as a fallback. If the Legislature does not adopt a map by the end of the regular session, the court will impose a remedial map.

It’s unclear if there is a bill in the current legislative session that could be amended to include the new congressional maps. The deadline to file new legislation passed in early April.

Any amendments have to be germane to the bill, and the only congressional redistricting bill was withdrawn shortly after it was filed in early April. Several other bills would redistrict the Legislature and Louisiana Supreme Court, but such substantive amendments could be ruled as irrelevant to the bill.

In the Callais case, the judges found that race was the motivating factor for the drawing of the map, making it an illegal racial gerrymander. They rejected the argument that legislators were motivated by politics. Partisan gerrymandering is legal, but racial gerrymandering is not.

A key part of the court’s finding that the map constitutes a racial gerrymander is the shape of the new 6th Congress District, which runs from Caddo Parish in northwest Louisiana down to East Baton Rouge Parish, crossing the center of the state diagonally to pick up communities of Black voters along the way.

“The Court finds that … District 6 does not satisfy the ‘geographically compact’ and ‘reasonably configured’ Gingles requirement,” the opinion reads.

The Gingles test arose from a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that set standards for determining whether election districts meet federal standards.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.