The Supreme Court is asked to pause a ruling against Louisiana's congressional map
NPRThe Supreme Court is asked to pause a ruling against Louisiana's congressional map Enlarge this image toggle caption Gerald Herbert/AP Gerald Herbert/AP The state of Louisiana and a group of Black Louisiana voters have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to put a hold on a lower court order that is blocking Louisiana from using the state's new congressional map for this year's elections, marking the latest twist in a long-running redistricting battle over the rights of the state's Black voters. In a 2-1 decision released on April 30, the three-judge court found that the map of voting districts – which Louisiana's state legislature drew during a January special session with two majority-Black districts to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act – violates the Constitution, ruling in favor of a group of self-described "non-African American" voters who argued that the state engaged in racial gerrymandering. The state's Republican-led lawmakers passed the challenged map with two majority-Black voting districts — which are likely to elect Democrats given how racially polarized voting is in Louisiana — after a federal judge in an earlier lawsuit found that the state's previous map likely diluted the voting strength of the state's Black voters. Still, the Supreme Court allowed that map, which was struck down by U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick for likely violating the Voting Rights Act's Section 2, to be used in the 2022 midterm elections while the justices reviewed a similar congressional redistricting case out of Alabama.