Louisiana residents pack the 5th Circuit for Justice
16th October 2023 · 0 Comments
Louisiana residents filled every bench and seat at last week’s Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing of Robinson v Ardoin, a lawsuit by Louisiana residents and civil rights groups seeking a second majority-minority district.
As predicted, the state’s attorney general lawyers argued against creating a second congressional district, which allows Black Louisianans, one-third of the state’s population, to elect a congressperson of their choice. Only one of the six congressional districts on the map contained a majority of Black voters.
The state’s predominantly Republican legislature and Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry were clearly encouraged by the Klanish decision of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican majority, which refused to uphold the federal district court’s injunction barring the state from using the gerrymandered congressional maps in future elections.
Governor John Bel Edwards vetoed the maps because they diluted the votes of Black Louisianans.
The partisan decision of the High Court paved the way for the reelection of the same congressional delegates that held the House of Representatives seats in 2020. Even worse, the maps at issue were the same ones drawn in 2011. Nearly 12 years later, we have the same results – diluted Black votes.
The Supreme Court Justices’ decision to not review Robinson v Ardoin until a mirrored case in Alabama was decided brought us two more years of unfair taxation without representation in most of the state’s five predominately Black parishes.
So last week, advocates of the second majority-minority districts were treated to state attorney arguments that the plaintiffs want a district map drawn based on “skin color.”
Say what? So, what exactly can we deduce from the fact that five of the six members of Congress are white, the white population is 55.8 percent (according to the Census Bureau’s 2020 Race & Ethnicity Prevalence by State), and they hold 83 percent of the seats in Congress? First, that’s voodoo math, and second, how can the maps that created a White majority in Louisiana’s congressional delegation not be based on skin color?
What’s not fuzzy math is that one-third of six is two. As such, Black voters should have two majority-minority districts.
The Galmon v Ardoin case brought by Edward Galmon Sr., Ciara Hart, Norris Henderson and Tramelle Howard, in March 2022 was consolidated with Robinson v Ardoin, an emergency appeals case for a preliminary injunction to stop the state from using the discriminatory maps. Press Robinson, Edgar Cage, Dorothy Nairne, Edwin Rene, Soule, Alice Washington, Clee Earnest Lowe, Davante Lewis, Martha Davis, Ambrose Sims, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Louisiana State Conference, Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, joined Galmon and the other plaintiffs in seeking a second congressional seat.
In response, the state jumped over the appellate court and went straight to the U.S. Supreme Court to remove the injunction. The ridiculous argument was filled with legal mumbo-jumbo that asserted race couldn’t be a determinant for drawing a second majority-minority district. The Supreme Court didn’t review the case but suspended the injunction and allowed the maps to be used.
Now, one doesn’t have to be a lawyer to know that skipping the appellate court to argue against the injunction was totally out of order. But who cares when you know the good old boys would do your bidding…voters’ needs be damned.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican majority did the same thing in Merrill v Milligan (later Allen v Milligan) as in Robinson v Ardoin. Just in time for the midterm elections, justices reinstated the Alabama voting map in a 5-4 vote despite the lower court’s ruling that it diluted Black votes.
A year later, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Alabama’s redistricting map for its 2022 congressional elections violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting the influence of the state’s Black voters.
The 5-4 decision found Alabama’s GOP-drawn map racially biased, discriminatory, and illegal. Alabama had to redraw its map.
By then, as in Louisiana, the damage was done. Alabama’s and Louisiana’s congressional representatives were elected based on illegal maps.
Now, while the fate of Louisiana’s and South Carolina’s congressional map challenges hang in the balance, Alabama is showing its ass to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Looks like the High Court can’t put the genie back into the bottle. Last July, the Alabama state legislature defied the U.S. Supreme Court’s order. It drew a new congressional map with just one majority-Black district and a second district with less than 50 percent Black residents.
Oh, what a tangled partisan web they weave when the conservatives try to deceive. Talk about home cooking.
Black Americans have fought for the right to vote since the Emancipation Proclamation. If recent early voting numbers are any indication, with less than 20 percent of voters turning out in New Orleans, some of us are tired of going to the polls. Those who are weary and don’t think their vote counts consider this: there have been elections where two votes determined the winner.
Right now, there is a call to action. We need all voters to turn out. If not, we face a Republican trifecta in Louisiana and an authoritarian-leaning Congress nationally that will take us back to 1850.
This article originally published in the October 16, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
