Federal appeals court blocks Louisiana's new congressional map in blow to GOP

Judges for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Louisiana's request to allow it to enforce its long-stalled congressional redistricting map, delivering a near-term blow to Republicans in the state by ruling that it amounts to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

All three judges on the bench voted to uphold a lower court's ruling that the map in question — originally passed by Louisiana's Republican-majority legislature in 2022 — violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by diluting the votes of Black residents in the state.

They also affirmed the district court's ruling that the map in question violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by, "'packing' Black voters into a small number of majority-Black districts, and ‘cracking’ other Black communities across multiple districts, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to form effective voting blocs." 

Judges on the panel also rejected the state's contention that conditions in Louisiana have changed enough to render race-conscious remedies obsolete.

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"There is no legal basis for this proposition, and the state offers no evidence that conditions in Louisiana have changed" enough to negate that need, the court said in its ruling. 

One judge on the panel issued a stay before the court’s ruling could take force, though the issue is something of a moot point, since the Supreme Court, which is also reviewing the map, had already done so earlier this year.

The ruling from the Fifth Circuit, which has a reputation as one of the more conservative appeals courts, is a victory in the near term for the ACLU and other plaintiffs who sued to block the state's map from taking force.

Still, any relief for plaintiffs from the appeals court ruling is likely to be short-lived.

The Supreme Court in March heard oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, which also centers on the legality of Louisiana's redistricting map and whether race should be considered a factor in drawing new congressional districts.

Oral arguments then focused heavily on whether Louisiana's redistricting efforts were narrowly tailored enough to meet constitutional requirements and whether race was used in a way that violated the law, as the appellees alleged.

The Supreme Court in June said it would hear additional arguments in the case in the fall term, citing the need for more information before it could issue a ruling.

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Earlier this month, justices ordered both parties to file supplemental briefs by mid-September, outlining in further detail arguments for and against Louisiana's proposed map and whether the intentional creation of a second majority-Black congressional district "violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution."

The careful consideration from the Supreme Court is the clearest sign yet that redistricting issues remain top of mind in the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections and beyond.

It also comes at a pivotal time in the U.S., as new and politically charged redistricting fights have popped up in other states ahead of next year's midterm elections.

Louisiana, for its part, has revised its congressional map twice since the 2020 census. 

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The first version, which included only one majority-Black district, was blocked by a federal court in 2022. The court sided with the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP and other plaintiffs, ruling the map diluted Black voting power and ordering the state to redraw it by January 2024.

The new map, S.B. 8, created the second Black-majority district. But it was almost immediately challenged by a group of non-Black plaintiffs in court, who took issue with a new district that stretched some 250 miles from Louisiana's northwest corner of Shreveport to Baton Rouge, in the state's southeast.

They argued in their lawsuit that the state violated the equal protection clause by relying too heavily on race to draw the maps and created a "sinuous and jagged second majority-Black district."

The intense court fights in Louisiana underscore the broader redistricting battles playing out in Republican- and Democrat-led states across the country, as they spar over new congressional maps with an eye to the looming midterm elections.

In Texas, tensions reached a fever pitch after Democratic state legislators fled the Lone Star State to block Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's ability to convene a legislative quorum to pass the state's aggressive new redistricting map, which would create five additional Republican-leaning districts.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom responded by introducing a new map of his own that favors Democrats.

The move highlights how both parties are engaged in aggressive redistricting battles, with Republican-led states pushing maps to defend the GOP’s slim House majority and Democrats seeking to expand their own advantages. As with most midterms following a new president’s election, 2026 is expected to serve as a referendum on the White House — raising GOP concerns that they could lose control of the chamber.

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, for her part, vowed at a press conference earlier this month to explore "every option" in redrawing state lines. 

"We are at war," Hochul said, speaking alongside the Texas Democrats who fled to her state.