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Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Tuesday, November 05, 2024

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a bid by Louisiana officials and civil rights groups to preserve an electoral map that raised the number of Black-majority congressional districts in the state in a legal challenge by a group of voters who called themselves "non-African American."

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... The justices took up appeals of a decision by a panel of three federal judges that found that the map laying out Louisiana's six U.S. House of Representatives districts - with two Black-majority districts, up from one previously - likely violated the U.S. Constitution's promise of equal protection.

The Supreme Court in May allowed the map to be used in Tuesday's election that will decide control of the House. Its decision to hear the appeal does not change that. The court is expected to hear arguments in the case and issue a decision by the end of June.
Stuart Naifeh, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, one of the civil rights groups involved in the case, said, "We look forward to continuing to defend the rights of Black voters to elect their candidates of choice in the Supreme Court."

The boundaries of legislative districts across the country are redrawn to reflect population changes every decade. The Louisiana case is the latest in a series of legal disputes over racial issues arising during this redistricting process.

The Republican-controlled Louisiana legislature approved the map in January after U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick in 2022 ruled that a map it previously had adopted containing only a single Black-majority congressional district in the state unlawfully harmed Black voters.

Dick concluded that this previous map likely violated the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 U.S. law that bars racial discrimination in voting. Black people comprise nearly a third of Louisiana's population.

The Supreme Court in 2023 left Dick's ruling in place.

In January, 12 Louisiana voters identifying themselves in court papers as "non-African American" sued to block the redrawn map in Louisiana. A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not respond to a request to provide the racial breakdown of the plaintiffs. ...


#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2024-11-04 06:59 PM | Reply

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