Supreme Court Tackles Complex Gerrymandering Case

Louisiana appeal reveals tension between fair voting rights and racial representation.

Louisiana has found itself repeatedly in the gerrymandering hot seat. Gerrymandering refers to efforts to favor one political party in the drawing of voting district lines, but racial prejudices – or favoritism – also can influence such actions. Louisiana’s effort to carry out judicial demands that it create a second state voting district to ensure black Louisianians are properly represented has been struck down as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court on March 24 began hearing arguments to resolve legal tensions in time for states to properly create election districts for 2026 and beyond.

Louisiana’s Unenviable Effort

The state’s torturous gerrymandering trek began with an effort to craft a second majority-black voting district following its 1990 census. The resulting odd-shaped line drawing was struck down, as was a second try described as resembling an inkblot. Louisiana then reverted to a proposal that included a single majority-black district in 2020, which was rejected in federal court for violating the Voting Rights Act. The Pelican State was ordered to create a second “majority-minority” district to ensure fair treatment of black citizens, but the effort has proved to be difficult.

In 2024, the state crafted a jigsaw-shaped district to comply, but this time a federal court ruled it was race-based gerrymandering in breach of the Equal Protection Clause. That has been challenged in the nation’s highest court, which is now “asked to resolve the longstanding tension between the Voting Rights Act and Equal Protection Clause for the benefit of all states seeking to craft constitutional congressional districts in time for the 2026 election season.”

Louisiana has been ordered to ensure two of its seven districts are majority black to fulfill the Voting Rights Act, but when it redrew District 6 to be 51% black, it was struck down as race-based. This was then challenged in the Supreme Court, which granted a request for emergency relief for the 2024 election so that the latest two-black-district system was employed. Now the Supreme Court is hearing arguments that observers hope will resolve these tensions in federal laws regulating gerrymandering.

Race vs Partisanship

The Supreme Court has ruled that gerrymandering for political purposes is not its business but that of politics, but when districts are crafted using “predominantly” racial motives, courts must subject them to strict scrutiny because they impact fundamental rights (Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP). Louisiana’s long gerrymandering journey has tried to thread through the competing demands of federal fairness, compounded by partisan political wrangling to favor Republican incumbents.

Louisiana is thus damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. This has clogged up the courts from crafting an acceptable legal resolution, becoming more challenging as continued racial integration and voters of color increasing their support for Republicans stir up the district-drawing melting pot.

Louisiana was court-ordered to consider race in its redistricting, but to do so “predominantly” is unconstitutional. The state has argued that the non-black plaintiffs lack standing. If SCOTUS agrees, it could duck a ruling, but that would leave states in legal limbo for the future.

Gerrymandering Confusion

Louisiana officials have asserted that “[h]aving forced the state into adopting a second majority-Black district, the federal judiciary cannot wash its hands of the matter now and point at the legislature,” yet that is essentially the legal crack in which the state currently finds itself. This lack of guidance from federal courts is the cause of the current consternation and why the parties – and other states – seek a clear resolution from the Supreme Court now.

Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that if the courts cannot draw a legal roadmap for how states are to decide these issues, they should leave it to state legislatures: “Drawing political districts is a task for politicians, not federal judges … There are no judicially manageable standards for resolving claims about districting, and, regardless, the Constitution commits those issues exclusively to the political branches.” Yet both sides in the current battle have rejected this approach.

Confronting strong political striation on its own bench, the Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in June. It has some tough decisions to make.