The United States Supreme Court has struck down Louisiana's congressional map, calling it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
Writing for the 6-3 majority, Justice Samuel Alito said Louisiana lawmakers used race as the predominant factor in creating the map, thereby violating the 15th Amendment to the Constitution. However, the court upheld the Voting Rights Act, noting that the 15th Amendment allows the law to be used to prohibit intentional racial discrimination in voting.
In his ruling, Alito specifically stated that partisan gerrymandering is constitutional.
University of Louisiana political science professor Pearson Cross says it'll take more lawsuits and more court rulings to fully settle this matter.
"All of this needs to be sorted out, and the courts are the place where that will happen," Cross said. "The Supreme Court basically sided with the people who challenged Louisiana in Louisiana v. Callais, but they didn't overturn the Voting Rights Act despite the fact the minority said, 'Yes, you did overturn it.'"
Cross said one thing is clear: Congressman Cleo Fields's days in Congress are numbered.
"That means we're likely to lose one Democratic member of Congress," Cross said. "I think it's pretty clear that the Sixth District is going to be eliminated and redrawn in a way that makes it not a majority-minority district."
This is the second time the Supreme Court has struck down a district represented by Fields as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. In 1995, the high court invalidated Louisiana's old Fourth District. That district had a similar shape to Fields's current district, snaking from Shreveport to Baton Rouge.
The Supreme Court remanded Louisiana v. Callais to the federal district court in Baton Rouge for further litigation. The million-dollar question now is: when will the Louisiana Legislature redraw the congressional map? Cross says lawmakers may not do so until after this year's midterm elections, but he says there's a chance the courts could force them to make those revisions before then.
"There will be lawsuits brought in, and a judge will have to rule on whether or not Louisiana would be required to do a redraw before voting could take place," Cross said.
According to Cross, other states' attorneys-general will likely file federal lawsuits on the heels of this case to invalidate their congressional maps on grounds that they too were illegally gerrymandered based on race.
"The court has made it very clear that using race in order to create a district is going to be unconstitutional moving forward," Cross said. "This is going to require a number of court cases and court actions."
State and local officials are commenting on the Supreme Court's ruling.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill says today's ruling "has ended Louisiana’s long-running nightmare of federal courts coercing the state to draw a racially discriminatory map."
New Orleans Congressman Troy Carter called the ruling a "devastating blow to the promise of equal representation in our democracy."
New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno called the decision a "step backward for fair representation in Louisiana and across the country."
The issue of congressional district boundaries could be tied up in courts for years
The issue of congressional district boundaries could be tied up in courts for years
