Nothing is more dangerous than being a Black voter who comes in contact with this Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court handed down a brief order Tuesday evening that effectively reinstates racially gerrymandered congressional maps in the state of Louisiana, at least for the 2022 election.
Under these maps, Black voters will control just one of Louisianas six congressional seats, despite the fact that African Americans make up nearly a third of the states population. Thus, the Courts decision in Ardoin v. Robinson means that Black people will have half as much congressional representation as they would enjoy under maps where Black voters have as much opportunity to elect their own preferred candidate as white people in Louisiana.
A federal trial court, applying longstanding Supreme Court precedents holding that the Voting Rights Act does not permit such racial gerrymanders, issued a preliminary injunction temporarily striking down the Louisiana maps and ordering the state legislature to draw new ones that include two Black-majority districts. Notably, a very conservative panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied the states request to stay the trial courts decision a sign that Louisianas maps were such a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act that even one of the most conservative appeals courts in the country could not find a good reason to disturb the trial courts decision.
As the Fifth Circuit explained, current law typically forbids maps that dilute a particular racial groups voting power, at least when that group is sufficiently large and compact to form a majority in additional congressional districts, when it votes cohesively and when whites tend to vote as a bloc to defeat the minority groups preferred candidates.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 along party lines to stay the trial courts injunction, effectively reinstating the gerrymandered maps. The Courts order is only one page, and it provides no substantive explanation of why the Courts Republican appointees voted to effectively strip Black Louisianans of half of their representation in the US House of Representatives.