Today, the Supreme Court has ordered the case of Louisiana v. Callais to be reargued in its next term. This decision will delay a ruling on the legality of Louisiana’s congressional districts by several months. The Court mentioned that future orders might introduce “additional questions” for briefing and argument. Although reargument is rare, it is not unprecedented.
Justice Thomas dissented from this decision, arguing that the Court has an “obligation to resolve [redistricting] challenges promptly,” especially since these cases fall under mandatory appellate jurisdiction rather than discretionary certiorari jurisdiction.
The case centers on a conflict between interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). While the VRA sometimes mandates race-conscious redistricting to ensure minorities can participate equally in politics and elect representatives, the Equal Protection Clause prohibits states from prioritizing race when drawing district lines. The Court has indicated that creating a majority-minority district can be constitutional if other factors like compactness and respect for municipal boundaries are also considered.
Louisiana currently has six congressional districts, with blacks comprising a majority in one. A district court previously ruled that without a second majority-minority district, Louisiana would violate the VRA. Consequently, Louisiana created another such district spanning across the state to include enough black constituents. This led to a lawsuit challenging it as racial gerrymandering. The state then requested Supreme Court review due to conflicting demands between the VRA and Fourteenth Amendment.
The reasons for reargument remain speculative as additional questions have yet to be identified by the Court. There is hope that this time allows for constructing coherent doctrine even if it means overruling precedents. One potential topic could be Justice Kavanaugh’s “temporal” issue raised during oral arguments: whether creating majority-minority districts remains constitutional given improved access to voting over sixty years since passing the VRA. Similar conclusions were drawn regarding Section 4 of VRA in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, questioning reliance on outdated remedies for evolving problems.
