Supreme Court’s Louisiana redistricting ruling poised to wipe out House Democrats in the South

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais is set to spark a shake-up of congressional maps across the South in the coming years, which will likely see multiple Democratic-held districts drawn out of existence.

The high court ruled 6-3 on Wednesday that Louisiana’s creation of a second minority-majority district in compliance with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The majority also rewrote the legal test for determining unlawful redistricting under Section 2 of the VRA, as established by a 1986 ruling in Thornburg v. Gingles. Under the previous Gingles test, lawsuits over a state’s congressional maps simply had to show that the voting power of minorities was diluted, regardless of the reason. But the new framework says lawsuits have to prove states intentionally disenfranchised minority voters if they draw districts that effectively water down the minority vote, creating a much higher bar