WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map Wednesday, finding the Pelican State unconstitutionally added a second majority-black House district in a major decision with implications for future elections.
Louisiana had been forced by lower courts to create a second majority-black district in 2024 to comply with Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which restricts states from diluting minority votes.
The Trump administration and state officials challenged the new map, arguing it was a racial gerrymander in violation of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees all citizens equal protection under the law.
The high court agreed, with all six conservative justices voting to get rid of the 2024 boundaries.
However, the majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, stopped short of finding Section 2 of the VRA unconstitutional, as many activists had feared.
“If these were white Democrats, there’s no reason to think they would have a second district, none,” principal deputy solicitor general Hashim Mooppan told the court during oral arguments this past October.
“And so what is happening here is, their argument is, ‘Because these Democrats happen to be black, they get a second district.’ If they were all white, we all agree they wouldn’t get the same.”
Roughly one-third of Louisiana residents are African-American, and the state’s only two Democratic lawmakers in Congress (compared to four House Republicans) were elected from the majority-black districts.
The justices initially took up the Louisiana map case during the 2024-25 term, but in a rare move, ordered both sides to restate their arguments to consider both the 14th and 15th Amendments, the latter of which stipulates that states cannot deny citizens equal protection under the law nor abridge their rights on the basis of race.
That was widely interpreted as a signal that the Supreme Court was gearing up to weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
However, Alito wrote that “[c]ompliance with [Section] 2, as properly construed, can provide such a reason [for race-based redistricting]. Correctly understood, [Section] 2 does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map.”
According to one analysis from Democratic voting groups Fair Fight Action and the Black Voters Matter Fund, Republican officials could redraw 19 congressional districts in the South and Midwest to be significantly more favorable to the GOP as a direct result of Tuesday’s ruling.
However, it’s not clear if red states will be able to seize on the Supreme Court’s decision in time to significantly impact the 2026 midterms, in which Democrats are favored to retake the House of Representatives.
