Supreme Court Puts Off Ruling on Louisiana Districts

The Supreme Court on Friday put off ruling on a second Black majority congressional district in Louisiana, instead ordering new arguments in the fall. The case is being closely watched because at arguments in March, several of the court's Republican-appointed justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act. Justice Clarence Thomas noted in a brief dissent from Friday's order that he would have decided the case now and imposed limits on "race-based redistricting," the AP reports.

• Supreme Court's moves: The order keeps alive a fight over political power stemming from the 2020 census halfway to the next one. Two maps were blocked by lower courts, and the Supreme Court intervened twice. Last year, the justices ordered the new map to be used in the 2024 elections, while the legal case proceeded.
• Next election: The call for new arguments probably means that the district currently represented by Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields will remain intact for the 2026 elections because the high court has separately been reluctant to upend districts as elections draw near.
• Louisiana's change: The state has revamped its election process to replace its so-called jungle primary with partisan primary elections in the spring, followed by a November showdown between the party nominees. The change means candidates can start gathering signatures in September to get on the primary ballot for 2026.

The state's Republican-dominated legislature drew a new congressional map in 2022 to account for population shifts reflected in the 2020 census, per the AP. But that map effectively maintained the status quo of five Republican-leaning majority white districts and one Democratic-leaning majority Black district in a state in which Black people make up a third of the population. The state later complied with an appeals court ruling and drew a new map with two Black majority districts. In its announcement Friday, the Supreme Court did not explain its reasoning or provide guidance on the focus of the new arguments, per the Hill.