Supreme Court says Louisiana redistricting ruling can take effect immediately

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday, in granting an unusual request made by Louisiana Republicans, allowed last week’s major voting rights ruling to go into effect immediately.

The decision, which prompted an angry written exchange between liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and conservative Justice Samuel Alito, means the state doesn’t have to wait the usual 32 days before a Supreme Court ruling is certified and sent back to a lower court.

Louisiana has sought to suspend its ongoing primary election so it can redraw congressional districts to take advantage of the ruling, which effectively greenlit states’ removing majority-Black districts that were drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The state aims to draw a new map that can be used for this year’s midterm election. The current map includes two majority-Black congressional districts held by Democrats. The four other seats are held by Republicans.

In last week’s ruling, the conservative majority gutted a key provision of the landmark 1965 voting law, saying states, including those with histories of discrimination against Black voters, can use their interest in entrenching partisan advantage as a defense when they are accused of diluting minority votes.

In her dissent, Jackson decried the court’s decision to bypass its normal practices about issuing final judgments, saying it is “tantamount to an approval of Louisiana’s rush to pause the ongoing election in order to pass a new map.”

She noted that the court normally takes a dim view of last-minute changes to election procedures. Instead, on this occasion the court “dives into the fray” in a way that is “unwarranted and unwise,” she added. The court’s two other liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, dissented in last week’s case but did not join Jackson’s opinion.

Alito, who authored last week’s ruling, responded with his own sharply worded opinion in which he described Jackson’s reasoning as “baseless and insulting.”

Responding to Jackson’s charge that the court is abusing its power, Alito called the claim “a groundless and utterly irresponsible charge.”

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