Supreme Court Agrees to Fast-Track Louisiana Voting Map Decision

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The Supreme Court on Monday evening agreed to immediately transmit to the lower courts its opinion striking down Louisiana’s congressional map, rather than wait 32 days, as would have been routine.

Last week’s landmark opinion from the court, which weakened the Voting Rights Act by concluding that one of Louisiana’s majority-Black congressional districts was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, has set off a chaotic scramble in the state.

Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, delayed a primary for House races, even with early voting scheduled to begin on Saturday, so that the state Legislature could work to immediately redraw maps. Republicans, who control the Legislature, are expected to try to eliminate at least one of the state’s two majority-Black districts. (Early voting in the state’s other races, including votes on constitutional amendments and a hotly contested Republican Senate primary, went forward.)

It was not immediately clear what effect Monday’s decision to send the case back to the lower courts without delay would have on the effort to speedily redistrict. Those moves have been challenged in court.

But a group of white voters who had challenged the Louisiana map and won their case before the Supreme Court had requested the move, believing that the technical step would make it easier to proceed quickly, and the court’s action does clear one barrier to drawing a new map.

In a one-paragraph, unsigned order, the court explained that “ordinarily,” the clerk of the Supreme Court waits the 32 days to send the opinion, in order to give the losing party time to ask the justices to reconsider the case. It is exceptionally rare for the court to agree to rehear a case once it has been argued and decided.

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