It’s best that Louisiana hold off on a congressional reapportionment special session, even with a powerful argument to proceed with one posthaste.
As signals mount from the U.S. Supreme Court that it plans to decouple race from partisanship in deciding the role race plays as a factor in reapportionment except in instances where a jurisdiction deliberately intends to discriminate against a community defined by a form of racial solidarity, calls have come from the White House on down that Republican-led states should proactively begin the reapportionment process, years ahead of the next census results that would necessitate this. Driving this desire is an expected close House of Representative election next year that could go either way. In fact, the coming election has threatened to trigger a line-drawing arms race where several states controlled by one of the major parties have vowed, or even started to, redraw their maps in the hopes of seizing partisan advantage without race playing such a prominent role as the judiciary has assigned it since the operative Alabama cases opened the door to having states draw boundaries in rough proportion their racial compositions.
Which the Voting Rights Act specifically denies without a showing of deliberate discrimination intent and is why the Court seems on the verge of saying any rationale for giving race such prominence needs review in the light of changing times, deemphasizing that outcome necessarily must mirror intent. Section 2 by word prohibits specific mirroring of the proportion of district majorities to population proportions but by judicial interpretation has erred on the sides of results bearing a large role in determining intent. That seems set to change with a Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais to be decided next year that likely will redefine case law addressing Section 2 away from this thinking or excising it completely on the basis that societal conditions have made the results-equal-intent view timebound and no longer applicable.
And a call from political commentator Scott McKay, publisher of the opinion website The Hayride, asks Louisiana to join in. McKay makes a solid argument that (1) the one seat that the GOP inevitably would pick up from Democrats by reverting back to a single majority-minority district could matter, (2) it would assuage legislative Republicans conflicted at voting into being the present declared unconstitutional two M/M map that essentially gave away a GOP seat, and (3) the beneficiary of that, the ethically-challenged Democrat Rep. Cleo Fields, is owed nothing by Republicans and should be ushered out of power as soon as possible, as in at the end of 2026.
As soon as possible is desirable insofar as this could apply to 2026 elections. Otherwise, the election calendar is such that, if the Court doesn’t decide almost immediatel,y with the state’s renewed semi-closed primaries for federal elections then the state wouldn’t have time to punch out a new map and the Purcell Principle kicks in that doesn’t have the new districts in place until 2028.
Of course, were the reapportionment to happen any time soon, this immediately would moot Callais and, in essence, it would be back to the drawing board for any reconceptualization of Section 2. Thus, the appeal would be to have the new map apply only if and when the Court gives the green light through a Callais decision, as long as it happens before the end of the year because of the election calendar.
It's a great thought, but it’s not the direction the state should head. Because then Callais as a vehicle for Section 2 change/mooting well might be forfeited.
It’s hard to see the Court upholding the current 4/2 map under previous jurisprudence, but that doesn’t mean automatically following would be Section 2 alteration. It’s one step to junk a map judged defective following from existing case law but entirely another to create new case law, especially one that redefines the area for the first time in four decades since Thornburg v. Gingles. That would be even more likely the scenario if the crux of the argument lies on the passage of time altering the meaning imputed from past casework.
Probably at least Chief Justice John Roberts, and maybe others, might have to be coaxed that stare decisis can’t work in this situation. And one way to do that is to allow another election cycle to build into the solution. That is, if the “times have changed” argument works well in the 44 years since the 1982 iteration of the VRA, it works even better after 46 years, or the 2028 election cycle.
Other states can pass all the new reapportionment plans they want, but the predictable suits against these will keep these on hold until Callais’ decision is announced. And wavering justices on the idea of significant change might go for a Solomonic solution – trash the current interpretation of Section 2 but wait two years for it to trigger – whereas without that you couldn’t get a majority to act immediately and thereby limit the decision simply to tossing the Callais map and say try again under the current interpretation.
So, having the Court announce even as early as December would still keep the 4/2 map in business for another cycle but boost dramatically the chances that this would be its last go-round. The long game is most important here, a consideration magnified by the charged subject area where all sorts of special interests, Democrats, and leftist opportunists will cry racism should the Court revise its view on Section 2, so the environment should be set up to assure the Court has much leeway as possible to bear into life a better and more faithfully constitutional version of Section 2, even if it means tolerating one more election cycle under flawed rules.
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