Civil rights groups representing Black voters in the Louisiana congressional redistricting case have asked the Supreme Court to stay a three-judge panel’s ruling that the state’s latest map, which creates an additional minority opportunity district, is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The application argues that compliance with Section 2 inevitably requires some consideration of race, but that consideration did not—and does not—constitute impermissible racial discrimination. The application also invokes the principle that stays should generally be granted when an injunction is issued in the period leading up to an election, a principle the Supreme Court has routinely deployed in recent years to block injunctions won by voting rights plaintiffs.
The State Legislature drew that map in January with a second Black-opportunity district following years of litigation over the Voting Rights Act. Wednesday’s application asked the justices to let the state use that January map this fall.
The applicants, who include some of the original plaintiffs in the case, said last month’s ruling left the state without a map at all, and state officials said they must have one in place by May 15 to conduct the state’s elections.
According to court records, the three-judge panel set a June timeline for the court to approve a new map for the state. But the application said that would be too late, as well as an injustice to Black voters in the state after the Supreme Court itself had prevented the drawing of a new map before the 2022 election.
The full emergency stay application is available here.