The legal gymnastics have begun for the political left to delay the inevitable long enough to seat an extra Democrat into Congress from Louisiana for 2024.
Just days after a number of Louisianans sued over the state’s new congressional map, arguing that it violated the 14th and 15th Amendments of the Constitution, the special interests behind the litigation that had encouraged the Legislature in special session to produce that map attempted a pair of legal maneuvers to slow the new case’s progress. One, filed in the Western District where the new case Callais v. Landry resides, alleges that the same deep-pocketed national interests that bankrolled and provided the primary legal assistance to the plaintiffs in the case against the old districts should be enrolled as defendants along with the state of Louisiana. The other, filed in the Middle District with the same judge Shelly Dick who has presided over the original consolidated Robinson v. Landry and Galmon v. Landry cases, tries to transfer the new case to her jurisdiction.
The reasons given are essentially the same. The motion to intervene comes under a claim that the issues argued in the new and the old cases are similar enough, but that the state, even as it has been defendant both times, is switching sides on arguments and so need involved the plaintiffs-now-defendants who have maintained the same argument. The motion to transfer asserts because of the supposed similarity the judge who handled the old case should try to new one.
And, the motive is the same – knowing the new map is in fact constitutionally defective and eventually will be invalidated, the special interests need to find ways to slow the day of reckoning, at least until the end of May when if the new lines haven’t been wiped out then basically these will be set in stone for 2024 elections. They are likely to succeed.
Not because they have good legal arguments. Conspicuously absent in their pleadings are two crucial facts: the injury in the Western District case differentiates it enough from the Middle District case and its basis for redress rests on entirely different legal bedrock.
Placement of the case in the Western District is entirely appropriate (contrary to the risibly hypocritical remarks of the original plaintiffs and legal team who called it “judge-shopping,” as they engaged in that very tactic by filing their case in the district in which they thought they could get the most favorable treatment with all of its judges Democrat Pres. Barack Obama appointees, and hit the jackpot with random assignment to the partisan left-wing Dick). All five of the District’s courthouses – in Shreveport, Monroe, Alexandria, Lake Charles, and Lafayette – are in cities torn apart by the new plan. The Middle District has just one split up, Baton Rouge (the remaining Eastern District has the cities of New Orleans, Kenner, and Hammond also all split between two districts). Further, the lead counsel in the case as well over half of the plaintiffs reside in the Western District.
Nor do the cases closely resemble each other. The old case to this point has been adjudicated under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, because that was the only avenue available as the original Alabama case that opened the door to giving race preferred treatment in reapportionment followed this path. By contrast, the new case rests on constitutional, not statutory, issues – a direction the old plaintiffs desperately resist, not only because the new case doesn’t deviate much from Hays v. Louisiana that declared maps like those unconstitutional but also due to the Kavanaugh concurrence in the Alabama case that signals a constitutional challenge would make the preferential treatment of race in reapportionment short-lived.
The home run strategy for the special interests would be to transfer the case to Dick’s court to keep a lid on either case being used as a device that wends it way to the Supreme Court to vacate their temporary win. Regardless. ultimately they can’t stop a constitutional challenge from happening, either from the new case or one from somewhere else. Nor ultimately can they force the new case into the old, and it's even doubtful they can force themselves onto the defense.
None of that is the point. The point is to delay, delay, and delay through motions like these and potentially in appeals to other courts, aided particularly if allowed to intervene in the new case, to ensure the new lines are in effect for 2024 and as many elections afterwards as they can manage, for the new map highly favors picking up a seat for Democrats.
While the public might get an earful from this crowd about how they allegedly are defending voting rights, never forget that this is a smokescreen disguising their true intent of trying to notch political victories and empowering the left. It’ll be worth it to them even if all they can squeeze out is one extra seat for one election, and now they have confirmed they’ll litigate to that end as long as their large bankroll allows.
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