5th Circuit will rehear case that created La.’s only Black Supreme Court seat

By Wesley Muller
Contributing Writer

(lailluminator.com) — The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to rehear a decades old voting rights case that established the only majority-Black state supreme court district in Louisiana, according to the court’s docket Monday afternoon.

On Monday (Jan 29), the 5th Circuit granted a petition from the State of Louisiana for a rehearing en banc on Chisom v. State of Louisiana, a gerrymandering lawsuit that stems from the 1980s. In the lawsuit, Black voters argued the Louisiana Legislature gerrymandered the Louisiana Supreme Court districts by packing Black neighborhoods into majority-white districts.

After protracted litigation that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, the state eventually agreed to a consent judgment in 1992 that settled the case by creating a majority-Black district based out of New Orleans. Associate Justice Piper Griffin currently holds the seat.

However, the state, through then-Attorney General Jeff Landry, moved to dissolve the consent judgment in 2021 ahead of the legislature’s special session on redistricting the following year.

Landry, a Republican who now serves as Louisiana’s governor, argued that the state no longer needs a federal court to force it to comply with the Voting Rights Act. He further argued that the consent judgment was only meant to be temporary and is being incorrectly used as a “perpetual federal check on the State.”

A district court initially declined the state’s request, but the state appealed to the 5th Circuit, where a three-judge panel also initially rejected the state’s arguments. However, the state continued its fight, and 17 out of the 26 judges at the 5th Circuit have agreed to rehear the case.

The development comes on the heels of Landry’s recent decision to call a redistricting session earlier this month and press his Republican colleagues in the legislature to add a second majority-Black congressional district, which they did.

Attorneys involved in the lawsuit weren’t immediately willing to comment Monday afternoon as they were still reviewing the court’s order.

This is a developing story.

This article originally published in the February 5, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.