It’s been over two years, but Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s reapportionment gamble looks to be paying off, bigger and bigger and wider and wider.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that the 2024 congressional map drawn in a special session at the very start of Landry’s term unconstitutionally used race to create two majority-minority districts out of the state’s allotted six. The decision placed guardrails on the use of race, reaffirming that it does not have preferential treatment over other traditional principles of reapportionment in the absence of observable intent of racial animus in mapping.
That 2024 map came after a district court voided a 2022 map with only one M/M district without a trial on the merits, saying it violated the law. The Court enjoined any further action pending an Alabama case it resolved in 2023 that largely but not directly tracked the Louisiana case that also addressed the Voting Rights Act which ruled against the existing map, although the resulting judicially-drawn map eschewed doubling M/M districts to two and instead created two opportunity districts (where blacks had a plurality but not majority).
Resolution of that invited the district court judge to draw Louisiana’s map but more radically imprinting race. Further, as yet the Louisiana case had no constitutional component to it, the terms of debate were limited to the recent favorable rulings under the VRA that would have made a state attempt with a single M/M district less likely to succeed and risk eventual court imposition of a two M/M map. Indeed, a federal appellate court had ordered a trial that the district judge almost certainly would have used to force into existence such a map.
So, Landry changed the terms of the debate. The map he cajoled GOP legislators into passing so blatantly used race to draw districts, along the way injuring substantially most of the other criteria used in reapportionment such as avoiding bizarre shapes and keeping community of interests together, that it absolutely begged a constitutional challenge, which it duly inspired almost immediately. The plan seemed almost planned to fail, special interests that favored a two M/M map ruefully realized, and in a fashion that invited Court consideration of the exact relationship of the use of race compared to other criteria and when its use could override these.
There was no doubt that the 2024 map unconstitutionally used race and would be invalidated by lower courts, but the question was whether the case would reach the Court in a manner that would allow a majority to use it as a vehicle to stop expansion of the VRA that (at least temporarily) had given race a preferred position among criteria. After an initial trial, when the Court last year asked for the case to be reheard with a specific examination of statute relative to amendments dealing with voting rights, it affirmed Louisiana had ponied up the right vehicle, at which the state switched sides and the rest is now (recent) history.
In essence, Louisiana served as a sacrificial lamb to ensure proper jurisprudence reigned on behalf of all governments who reapportion every decade (this ruling applies to all plenary bodies, state and local), with it having to put up with a racial gerrymander that essentially flipped a state congressman from Republican to Democrat for at least two years that could stretch into four. Quite possibly the 2022 map could have survived through appeal after a full trial (although without the constitutional implications spawned by the current case) and, had things turned out a bit differently, that one seat difference could have put the Democrats in charge of the House of Representatives the past 17 months.
Landry still may endure criticism along these lines should the Legislature and district court (either could produce a new, likely single M/M map) move too slowly to replace the 2024 map in time for 2026 congressional elections (even if delayed) and Democrats very narrowly take over the House. In any event, many will blame him for letting Democrat Rep. Cleo Fields represent the state for two more years.
But if Republicans can avoid having two Louisiana Democrats go to Washington who make a difference in chamber control, Landry’s long game in having the state take one for the team will look good, and better still if the state sends five Republican congressmen to Capitol Hill for 2027.
No comments:
Post a Comment