Black voters in Louisiana are urging the Supreme Court to review a case that will determine whether the state’s newly enacted congressional map, featuring two majority-Black districts, will remain effective beyond the 2024 elections. The appeal, known as Robinson v. Callais, follows the Court’s emergency stay in May, which halted a district court’s decision to overturn the map and allowed it to be used for the upcoming election cycle. The key issue is whether the map will be upheld for the rest of the decade until the next redistricting.
The current map was created in response to a previous lawsuit, Robinson v. Landry, where a federal court found that the 2022 map, which included only one majority-Black district, likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The same Black voters and civic groups who are now appealing to the Supreme Court were instrumental in that significant legal victory, which was upheld on appeal.