Supreme Court allows second majority-Black district in Louisiana over liberal dissents
Source: CNN Politics
Updated 6:39 PM EDT, Wed May 15, 2024
CNN — The Supreme Court paused a chaotic legal fight over Louisiana’s congressional districts in a brief order Wednesday that will likely allow the state to use a map in this year’s election that creates a second majority-Black district and benefits Democrats. The court’s three liberal justices publicly dissented from the decision.
In the short term, the decision allows the state to move forward in this year’s election with a map that will make a second of its six districts competitive for Democrats. That could have enormous consequences given the razor-thin majority Republicans have in the US House of Representatives.
Louisiana state Sen. Cleo Fields, a Democrat and former member of Congress running in the new Black-majority district crafted by state lawmakers, said the high court’s ruling “was the outcome that was needed for the state.” “The people of Louisiana now know what their congressional lines look like,” he told CNN. On that point, at least, Fields and other Democrats in the state were aligned with Republican officials and a group of Black voters who had asked for the court’s intervention.
In a statement, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, a Republican, said that she was grateful the Supreme Court ensured ”a stable election season.” Although Black residents make up roughly a third of Louisiana’s population, the state currently has just one Black lawmaker – also the lone Democrat – in its current six-member US House delegation.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/15/politics/supreme-court-louisiana-black-voters-congressional-district/index.html
Link to ORDER (PDF viewer) - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24663346-scotus-ruling-on-louisiana-district
Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24663346/scotus-ruling-on-louisiana-district.pdf
Article updated.
Previous article/headline -
Updated 5:41 PM EDT, Wed May 15, 2024
CNN -- The Supreme Court paused a chaotic legal fight over Louisiana's congressional districts in a brief order Wednesday that will likely allow the state to use a map in this year's election that creates a second majority-Black district and benefits Democrats. The court's three liberal justices publicly dissented from the decision.
Louisiana specifically asked the Supreme Court last week to rely on a legal doctrine known as the Purcell principle, which it sometimes invokes to stay out of last-minute election lawsuits. The majority cited Purcell in its brief order but did not otherwise explain its reasoning.
But the court has never defined "last-minute" and it has faced blowback in recent years for applying that doctrine in a way critics see as inconsistent. Louisiana won't hold its congressional primary election until November. The ruling will have an impact beyond the Louisiana district, which explains the vote count, said CNN Supreme Court Analyst Steve Vladeck.
"This ruling is a short-term win for Black voters in Louisiana, and, thus, Democrats, but a long-term expansion of a deeply controversial approach to how federal courts handle election-year voting cases - which is a big part of why the justices seem to all have ended up in unpredictable positions here," said Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law.
Original article -
CNN -- The Supreme Court paused a chaotic legal fight over Louisiana's congressional districts in a brief order Wednesday that will likely allow the state to use a map in this year's election that creates a second majority-Black district and benefits Democrats.
The court's three liberal justices publicly dissented from the decision. In a brief separate opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said it was premature for the Supreme Court to intervene in the case.
"Rather than wading in now, I would have let the District Court's remedial process run its course before considering whether our emergency intervention was warranted," Jackson wrote.
This story has been updated with additional details.
= new reply since forum marked as read
and the dissents are part of that. Remember this isn't deciding the merits but just the application for a stay (which in this case, allows the redrawn map to proceed) and a citation of a case to justify it. 
Part of Justice Jackson's dissent noted this -
The question before us today, though, is far more quotid-
ian: When does Louisiana need a new map for the Novem-
ber 2024 election? Redistricting raises unique and unusual
timeliness concerns, with important deadlines weeks and
even months before an election. The three-judge District
Court in this action, after holding a full merits trial and
finding the current map unconstitutional, scheduled the
imposition of a remedial map for no later than June 4. In
doing so, it rejected the State’s argument that the real dead-
line for settling on a map is May 15. The State now renews
those arguments before us, asserting that waiting any
longer will result in irreparable harm, namely, “election
chaos.” Emergency Application in No. 23A1002, p. 19. The
Court appears to credit the State’s arguments, relying on
the so-called Purcell principle that courts making changes
to election procedures close to an election must consider the
possibility of “voter confusion.” Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549
U. S. 1, 4–5 (2006) (per curiam).
In my view, Purcell has no role to play here. There is
little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed
this far out from the November election. In fact, we have
often denied stays of redistricting orders issued as close or
closer to an election.
(snip)
I think aside from the fact that many want that redistricting to happen regardless, they are expressing concern about citing Purcell as an excuse that begins to establish an inconsistent timing definition of "emergency" upon acceptance of stay requests by the court, and how that could be applied (or misapplied) in the future.
