Supreme Court to hear case on Louisiana’s congressional map

LOUISIANA (KLFY) — The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on Wednesday in a case challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana’s congressional map.

The case, Louisiana v. Callais, questions whether the state’s creation of a second majority-black district, represented by Congressman Cleo Fields, violates the 14th or 15th Amendments of the Constitution.

“What we have here are two, two conflicting branches of law,” said David Hughes, a political science associate professor at UL Lafayette. “On the one hand, you’ve got the Section two jurisprudence from the voting rights Act, which says if you can draw new majority black districts, you should. On the other hand, you’ve got the cases stemming from the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment saying you’re not allowed to engage in what we would call racial gerrymandering.”

The case stems from a 2022 lawsuit filed by a group of black voters who alleged that the congressional map violated the federal Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate based on race.

A federal court had previously determined that the map was in violation of the Voting Rights Act and prohibited its use, leading to the Louisiana legislature redrawing the map in 2024 to create a second black majority district.

Attorney General Liz Murrill has expressed opposition to race-based districting.

“Our Constitution prohibits the sorting of Americans into voting districts based on their skin color – and Louisiana wants no part of that abhorrent system,” said Murrill.

All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by KLFY. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat from a broadcast script into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by KLFY staff before being published.

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