Market Data 
Topline
The Supreme Court upheld a new congressional map in Louisiana on Wednesday, clearing the way for a second majority-Black in the deep red state ahead of the 2024 elections, following years of litigation.
Key Facts
The court issued a stay on a lower court’s ruling that had blocked a recently redrawn congressional map from being used.
The court’s three Democratic appointees dissented from the decision, with Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson writing that redistricting “raises unique and unusual timeliness concerns.”
While nearly 39% of Louisiana’s population considered themselves non-white or two or more races in the 2020 U.S. Census, only one of its six Congressional districts had a majority-minority population.
The new Black-majority district includes the northern Louisiana city of Shreveport and capital Baton Rouge, stretching through Lafayette and Alexandria.
Key Background
Wednesday’s Supreme Court stay follows years of legal challenges and back-and-forth on a set of congressional maps that could alter the state’s representation in Congress. As it stands, Louisiana has five Republicans and one Democratic representative in the House, along with two GOP senators. An initial map adopted by the state’s GOP-controlled legislature in 2022 only included one majority-Black district, a controversial drawing that prompted a group of plaintiffs, including the NAACP, to challenge the map, claiming that under its boundaries Black voters in Louisiana would only control one-sixth of the state’s districts, despite making up nearly one third of the state population (residents who consider themselves “Black or African American alone” on the 2020 Census made up 32.8% of the state population). Those plaintiffs argued that map violated Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act, which prohibits “voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in one of the language minority groups.” In June 2022, a federal appeals court agreed with plaintiffs, issuing an injunction requiring state lawmakers to draw a new map with another majority-minority district.
Contra
After the newly elected Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed lawmakers’ new map into law including the second majority-minority district, another group of plaintiffs filed a lawsuit seeking to stop its implementation, arguing it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and amounted to racial gerrymandering. A lower district court panel agreed with plaintiffs, striking the new map, and leading to a group of civil rights groups to ask for Supreme Court review.
