5th Circuit denies Louisiana’s appeal in congressional redistricting case

By Wesley Muller
Contributing Writer

(lailluminator.com) — In Louisiana’s congressional redistricting case, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday denied the state’s petition to try to halt the lawsuit based on an unusual argument that says private individuals don’t have the right to sue over voting rights.

Other aspects of the Robinson v. Ardoin lawsuit remain pending in the 5th Circuit, but Friday’s ruling is a win for the Black voters who brought the case in early 2022 after Republican lawmakers adopted a congressional map with just one Black district out of six despite the state having a population that is one-third Black.

Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin is the lead defendant in the case. He and other state Republican leaders appealed a lower federal court ruling that ordered lawmakers to redraw the districts. The defendants grounded one of their arguments in a recent 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that advocates and court watchers have called radical in the way it circumvents the Voting Rights Act.

The 8th Circuit panel held that only the U.S. attorney general – not private individuals or organizations – can challenge redistricting maps. An overwhelming majority of voting rights lawsuits have come from private organizations such as the NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union.

After the state filed that petition, the U.S. Department of Justice joined the case on the side of the Black voters, effectively neutralizing the state’s argument.

The Louisiana Legislature has until Jan. 30, 2024, to draw a new congressional map with two majority-Black districts or else go to trial in a federal court that has previously ruled GOP lawmakers likely gerrymandered the districts to dilute the voting rights of Black residents.

In order to draw a new map, lawmakers would need to convene in a special session before that deadline, but they have so far been unwilling to do so before Gov.-elect Jeff Landry takes office. The court has already given lawmakers several deadline extensions.

Landry cannot convene a special session of the legislature until after he’s inaugurated on Jan. 8 – the same day lawmakers are sworn into office. State law also requires a special session begin no sooner than seven days after the governor calls for one. That means the earliest a special session could take place is Jan. 15.

Such a special session could be completed in as little as two or three days if the lawmakers have the political will to do it. Both the legislature and the court have already vetted several maps that would comply with the federal law, eliminating the need to bring in demographers, legal consultants and map experts who are typical participants in a full redistricting session.

Separately, the ACLU of Louisiana is challenging the state legislative district maps approved last year, arguing that those districts also don’t fairly represent the state’s Black voters. The Justice Department has joined plaintiffs in that case as well.

This article originally published in the December 18, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.