White voters now want to wipe out both of Louisiana’s majority-Black congressional districts

Louisiana suspended an ongoing congressional election to draft and enact a new electoral map eliminating one of the state’s two majority-Black districts barely a month after the U.S. Supreme Court threw out its old one in Callais v. Louisiana. But that’s neither fast enough nor far enough for the “non-African American” plaintiffs in Callais.

The redistricting legislation, SB 121, passed the Senate earlier this month and a House committee last week. The House started floor debate on the bill Thursday. 

But in a court filing Tuesday, the Callais plaintiffs complained that Louisiana lawmakers were working too slowly to implement a new congressional map, and signaled their intention to challenge it, once it is enacted, for purposefully using race to draw lines contrary to the Supreme Court’s ruling. 

“As sponsor Senator [Jay] Morris has testified, SB 121 is meant to emulate the 2022 map and the 2011 map, which was pre-cleared by the DOJ and intentionally created a majority-Black district,” they wrote. “None of the minor modifications to SB121 have removed these racial markers.”

“Although the record is not yet complete, there is reason to believe that SB121 does not fully comply with the Supreme Court’s Callais decision,” the plaintiffs added.

In response to the filing, the district court ordered Sec. of State Nancy Landry (R) to provide the “operational deadline” for implementing a new map for the 2026 midterms by June 1.

Louisiana’s current U.S. House map was created in 2022 after a district court held that the prior map violated the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and directed the creation of a second majority-Black district to better align with Louisiana’s racial demographics.

But the Supreme Court’s decision in Callais held that such racially-motivated mapmaking is unconstitutional. While the ruling did not require Louisiana to immediately replace its map, the Court did grant plaintiffs’ request to expedite sending an order down to the district court, making a quick redraw more likely, despite the ongoing litigation.

The Supreme Court handed down its decision in Callais on April 29. The next day, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) suspended the ongoing congressional election, leading to the voiding of more than 42,000 mail ballots that had already been cast.  

A Senate committee advanced the redistricting bill following days of public hearings and a marathon markup session that ended in the dark hours just before dawn on May 13. The full Senate passed the bill the next day, and the House took it up in committee the following week.

In their filing, the plaintiffs called that pace “desultory,” and accused Louisiana’s Republican legislature of “purposefully adopt[ing] an extremely slow legislative pace to avoid this Court’s remedial authority.”

Once the Louisiana House passes SB 121, which it amended, the bill will return to the Senate for a quick vote on the updated version, and then sent on to the governor for his signature. 

Adeline Tolle contributed to this report.