Since 2022, court rulings in at least eight states have revamped congressional districts or allowed challenged districts to remain in place for 2024 election
Which party rules the House of Representatives beginning in 2025 could be as much a function of judges issuing rulings as voters making choices between rival candidates.
Since 2022’s midterms, court rulings in Louisiana, Alabama, New York, and potentially Wisconsin, have or will have redrawn congressional maps that could imperil reelection odds for as many as nine Republican incumbents in the coming election cycle.
Those court-imposed revamps are countered by a North Carolina decision upholding maps benefitting Republicans in up to four of the state’s 14 congressional districts. Courts have also decided Republican-drawn maps in Georgia, Florida, and Texas will stand for 2024 elections.
Rulings in federal court challenges in Louisiana and Alabama determined state lawmakers violated Section 2 of the Voters Rights Act in not creating a second majority-black congressional district in their states. Section 2 states, in part, “prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified in Section 4(f)(2) of the Act.”
The Louisiana Legislature during a Jan. 15 special session adjusted CD 6 to stretch diagonally southeast from Shreveport in the northwest to Baton Rouge in south-central Louisiana.
Newly-seated Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed it into law on Jan. 22.
As a result, the state’s six-member U.S. House delegation will likely go from 5–1 Republican to 4–2 Republican after the 2024 election. CD 6 joins New Orleans-based CD 2 as Louisiana two majority-black, Democratic-leaning seats: President Joe Biden would have carried the new CD 6 by 20 percentage points in
2020; CD 2 would have gone to Mr. Biden by 36 percent.
CD 6 is now held by Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), who supported one of Mr. Landry’s GOP opponents in Louisiana’s gubernatorial election and did not publicly back House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) speakership bid, retaining a strong alliance with the deposed speaker, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
By John Haughey
