A federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that Louisiana’s legislative maps directly violate the Voting Rights Act and dilute the voting power of Black citizens in the state.
The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the maps unfairly divide communities into state districts with the aim of diluting their voting power and denying them an equal chance to elect preferred candidates.
The decision is part of the Nairne v. Landry case, launched by Black residents who sued the state over redistricting plans that state lawmakers introduced in 2022, which showed that the new congressional lines for Senate and House of Representatives districts did not increase the number of Black majority seats.
The lawsuit charged the state legislature with racial gerrymandering, arguing that lawmakers drew a congressional map that disenfranchises African American voters in a state where a third of the population is Black.
In 2024, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick of the Middle District of Louisiana ruled in favor of the plaintiffs.
The state appealed Dick’s ruling, urging the court to disregard federal laws prohibiting racial discrimination. State officials contended that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional and argued that remedies addressing racial disparities are not needed in Louisiana, where social and political interests have shifted.
Their appeal went to the Fifth Circuit Court, where a three-judge panel rejected their request and affirmed Dick’s decision.
“There is no legal basis for this proposition, and the State offers no evidence that conditions in Louisiana have changed in the year since Milligan was decided,” the court wrote. “In any event, this court, sitting en banc, and every other circuit to consider the issue have upheld the constitutionality of Section 2’s results test. We decline to depart from this settled and uniform precedent.”
The court’s decision also said that Congress approved the Voting Rights Act, “based on overwhelming evidence that ‘sterner and more elaborate measures were needed to address ‘an insidious and pervasive evil,” citing laws in some states that sought to disenfranchise Black voters.
Louisiana legislators must now redraw congressional lines to reflect the population of the state’s Black citizens and give them an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.
“This is a historic affirmation of the rights of Black voters in Louisiana,” said Megan Keenan, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project who is representing the Nairne plaintiffs. “Today’s decision sends a powerful message: The Voting Rights Act is still a vital safeguard against racial discrimination in our democracy.”
Other Southern states have faced similar lawsuits in recent years for redrawing congressional maps that continue to marginalize Black communities and diminish their voting power.
One redistricting battle currently in the national spotlight is in Texas, where state Republicans have drawn a new congressional map to flip five Democratic U.S. House seats that they can win for the GOP ahead of the 2026 congressional elections.
The battle escalated after dozens of Democratic lawmakers fled the state of Texas in a last-ditch effort to halt a vote on the new map.
The White House has been pressuring GOP-led states to redraw their maps with the hopes of increasing the Republican Party’s numbers in Congress. Right now, the GOP retains a razor-thin majority in the U.S. House.
The directive has triggered a frenzy in states like California, Ohio, Missouri, New York, Florida, Indiana and Illinois, where legislators are all scrambling to redraw their maps ahead of next year’s elections.
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