Appeals court keeps in place a January deadline for a new Louisiana congressional map

Updated December 15, 2023 at 10:27 AM ET

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected Republican state officials' request for a review of a panel ruling in the legal fight over Louisiana's congressional map.

The officials cited the recent ruling by a separate federal appeals court that found private individuals — such as the Black voters in Louisiana who are arguing their state's map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — do not have the right to sue under that key section of the landmark law. They also question whether a lower court calling for a second majority-Black district to be drawn through race-based redistricting is constitutional.

It's the latest legal development in a long-running redistricting fight that could help determine which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives after next year's elections.

The state's request to the full 5th Circuit had threatened to delay the complicated process for getting in place a redistricting plan that is in line with the Voting Rights Act in time for the 2024 elections.

A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit had given the Louisiana legislature until Jan. 15, 2024, to draw a new congressional map after concluding a lower court correctly ruled that the previous map likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of the state's Black voters. That deadline has since been extended to Jan. 30, 2024.

The panel's order, released on Nov. 10, tossed out a 2022 ruling by the lower court, which the panel noted was "issued with the urgency of establishing a map for the 2022 elections" and is "no longer necessary."

Still, the panel found that the lower court "did not clearly err in its necessary fact-findings nor commit legal error" in finding the map approved by the state's Republican-controlled legislature to be a likely violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Out of that map's six congressional districts, there is only one where Black Louisianans — who make up close to a third of the state's population — have a realistic opportunity to elect their preferred candidate. That candidate would likely be a Democrat because of how racially polarized voting is in the southern state.

The appeals court panel's ruling notes that if the state legislature does not pass a new map in January, the lower court should move ahead to a trial in order to finalize a map in time for the 2024 elections.

Any major delays could risk not having a redistricting plan in place by late May, when the state has said it needs a final map to prepare for elections.

Republican Gov.-elect Jeff Landry has said he plans to call a special session once he takes office next month.

The state's outgoing Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, could call a session before leaving office.

But on Nov. 30, Eric Holl, a spokesperson for the governor, confirmed in an email that Edwards is not planning to call a special session to draw new maps because "the new governor and legislature will now have time to meet the deadline."

The U.S. Supreme Court was recently asked to review a separate 5th Circuit panel's ruling that canceled a hearing about redrawing the map. The court denied an emergency request to revive that hearing and speed up the redrawing process.

This case is one of several in the South where Republican state officials are trying to argue that the Voting Rights Act's Section 2 is no longer constitutional. Section 2 is a key remaining part of the landmark law after Supreme Court rulings weakened many of its provisions over the past decade. The effort against Section 2 is trying to push federal courts to reinterpret long-standing legal protections against racial discrimination in redistricting.

In a similar congressional redistricting case out of Alabama, however, the Supreme Court ruled in June to uphold its past rulings on Section 2 and allowed a lower court to put in place a map with two opportunity districts for Black voters.

WNNO and WRKF reporter Molly Ryan contributed to this report.

Edited by Benjamin Swasey

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.