Supreme Court reinstates another GOP-drawn congressional map with Louisiana ruling #Supreme #Court #reinstates #GOPdrawn #congressional #map #Louisiana #ruling Welcome to OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
The US Supreme Court has reinstated a Republican-signed congressional card in Louisiana that will be used in midterm elections after lower courts ruled it was signed in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
A June 28 ruling by the nation’s Supreme Court allows a congressional card to stand in Louisiana, rejecting two lower court rulings that found the card likely violates historic civil rights law by reducing the voting power of black voters.
The court’s brief injunction with a conservative majority — which contained no reasoning whatsoever — follows a similar verdict regarding the newly drawn Alabama map. The three liberal judges Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor disagreed.
The latest order means that upcoming midterm elections for at least three seats in the US House of Representatives will be decided in districts with borders likely to violate the Voting Rights Act.
A 2013 Supreme Court ruling removed federal “preclearance” guidelines that required states with histories of racial discrimination in the polls to enact new election laws without first getting federal approval. Last year, the court struck down another provision of the Voting Rights Act that makes it more difficult to challenge GOP-backed reclassification plans.
The most recent reclassification cycle — the nationwide reclassification of political boundaries once every decade based on the results of the U.S. census conducted once every decade — is the first without these pre-approval guidelines.
Three states previously subject to these requirements — Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana — have recently faced federal courts over their new cards.
In a February 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court reinstated Alabama’s map after judges dismissed it; a furious dissent from Judge Kagan said the majority decision “does a disservice to the Black Alabamians” whose “electoral powers have been diminished — in violation of a law the Court once knew underpinned all of American democracy. “
About 27 percent of Alabama’s population is black, although black residents represent one of the state’s seven congressional districts. That decision eliminated the creation of a district with a second majority of blacks.
A federal judge in Georgia also upheld GOP-drafted state maps in March, likely giving Republicans a new seat in Congress this fall and eliminating the chance of creating a new majority black district.
Earlier this month, the Florida Supreme Court gave the green light to a map pushed by Governor Ron DeSantis after voting rights advocates claimed the map violates the state’s anti-Gerrymandering amendments to the state constitution.
Louisiana has six congressional districts and about one-third of the state’s population is black. The latest U.S. census found that the state’s black population has grown nearly 4 percent in the past decade, while its white population has declined by 6.3 percent.
But a congressional map approved by the Republican-controlled state legislature contained only one black-majority district.
The Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate that card follows a 152-page district court opinion alleging discrimination against the card, and a 33-page opinion from a conservative federal appeals court confirming the lower court.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards called Tuesday’s decision “more than a little disappointing.”
“A third of our population is made up of black Louisianans, and a third of our districts would have to be majority black if such a map could be drawn, and, as has been shown, that map is more compact, better conforming to the legal principles that arrange redistricting, and will act,” he said.
Civil rights groups and nine voters in the state have filed a lawsuit to challenge the map after Louisiana’s state legislature voted to override the governor’s veto.
Alora Thomas, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said, “To adhere to the principles of representative democracy, Louisiana’s congressional map must reflect the richly diverse population it serves.”
Stuart Naifeh, manager of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s reclassification project, called the Supreme Court’s decision to “destroy for justice and fair representation that Black Louisianans have long fought for.”
“Two courts have reviewed the facts and agree that the Louisiana Congressional map violates the Voting Rights Act and that its use in the upcoming election will deprive black voters. [of] their right to participate in the political process on an equal footing, he said.
“The Voting Rights Act was created precisely to prevent the kind of manipulation of district lines to undermine the vote and power of black people that we see in Louisiana.”
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