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Two Donald Trump-appointed federal judges handed down a ruling Tuesday that would block Louisiana from using a newly authorized voter map that established an additional majority-Black district. The judges’ decision forbids Louisiana from using the map in this fall’s elections — a potential boon for Republicans, who hold a slim majority in the House of Representatives.
Black Louisianans and a number of civil rights organizations have already filed an appeal to the Supreme Court. And Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, told the USA Today Network, “We will of course be seeking (Supreme Court) review,” adding, “I’ve said all along the Supreme Court needs to clear this up.”
The 2-1 decision out of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana effectively undercuts a previous federal court ruling that found that a map proposed by the state Legislature unlawfully diluted Black voter power. Or put another way: It was effectively racist. The state’s Republican governor even signed off on the new map, over some objections from the far right.
Tuesday’s ruling deploys a perverse logic to claim that establishing another majority-Black voter district to correct this racist wrong was itself a violation of laws designed to protect people from ... racist voter dilution. The two Trump-appointed judges argued that Louisiana’s new map violated a clause in the 14th Amendment that guarantees equal protection under the Constitution. It's worth noting that the 14th Amendment was used to give voting rights to formerly enslaved Black folks and others who’d been deliberately disenfranchised.
The conservative justices’ argument is a tired rehash of right-wing arguments against affirmative action: that things done to remedy racist harms are inherently racist because they take race into consideration.
For example, the justices wrote:
The predominate role of race in the State’s decisions is reflected in the statements of legislative decision-makers, the division of cities and parishes along racial lines, the unusual shape of the district, and the evidence that the contours of the district were drawn to absorb sufficient numbers of Black-majority neighborhoods to achieve the goal of a functioning majority-Black district.
It stands to reason that a clear attempt to dilute Black voters' representation — as the map initially proposed by Louisiana Republicans did — would require, in response, taking race into consideration to empower those voters. But not according to District Judges Robert Summerhays and David Joseph.
This is just the latest example of right-wing judges putting their thumbs on the scale for Republicans in the lead-up to the 2024 elections. Clearly, Republicans would want all the help they can get to maintain, if not grow, their House majority. State-level Republican lawmakers and their ideological kin on state and federal benches seem happy to oblige. Unless the conservative-packed Supreme Court steps in, Louisiana is set to join South Carolina and Florida as states using maps previously deemed racist by federal or state courts.
And this kind of blatant illiberalism poses a legitimacy crisis for American electoral politics. When scores of Black people are voting in districts that have been gerrymandered to dilute their power, our elections cannot possibly be considered free or fair.