The Supreme Court on Monday sped up its final judgment in last week’s Voting Rights Act case, giving Louisiana a bit of a boost as it rushes to redraw its congressional map before November’s election.
In an unsigned order, the court said it usually waits more than a month after a ruling to issue its judgment. But it said that is not an absolute rule and can be adjusted — and in this case, that’s appropriate.
The result, both sides agreed, was to give an early blessing to Louisiana’s effort to redraw its map from its current a 4-2 GOP majority to a 5-1 Republican edge.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing a concurring opinion, said the court had to speed the ruling because otherwise Louisiana would hold elections “under a map that has been held to be unconstitutional.”
Last week’s ruling found that Louisiana was wrongly forced to draw two majority-Black districts — and thus two Democratic districts — ahead of the 2024 election.
The high court, in that 6-3 ruling Wednesday, said the Voting Rights Act can’t compel states to carve out special minority districts unless there is clear evidence of current discrimination that is being combatted.
Voting had already begun in the primaries but it was cut off by Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, who declared a state of emergency to halt voting a day after the ruling last week.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who dissented from last week’s ruling, also dissented from Monday’s action. She said it appeared the court was bowing to political pressure, in aiding Louisiana’s rush to redraw.
“Not content to have decided the law, it now takes steps to influence its implementation,” she wrote. “The court’s decision to buck our usual practice under Rule 45.3 and issue the judgment forthwith is tantamount to an approval of Louisiana’s rush to pause the ongoing election in order to pass a new map.”
The Biden appointee said the high court’s action has “spawned chaos in the State of Louisiana.”
She said under another Supreme Court precedent, the Purcell decision, courts are generally not supposed to meddle in elections already underway or when they are nearing.
Justice Alito, a George W. Bush appointee, delivered a withering rebuke to Justice Jackson, calling her reasoning “trivial” and “baseless” and “insulting” and “irresponsible.”
“The dissent accuses the court of ‘unshackl[ing]’ itself from ‘constraints,’” he wrote. “”It is the dissent’s rhetoric that lacks restraint.”
