Justices say voting rights ruling can go into effect
Louisiana redistricting effort may move rapidly
By: Maureen Groppe
USA Today
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on May 4 [2026] allowed its recent ruling limiting a key part of the Voting rights Act to take effect early, boosting the chances that Republicans can put into effect a new congressional map in Louisiana before November, [2026]
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The court customarily doesn't finalize decisions until a month after they are issued in order to allow time for the losing side to ask that the case be reheard. Requests for a rehearing are rarely granted.
..... Voters who won the case wanted to eliminate the waiting period to grant more time for new maps to be drawn. Black voters who feared losing representation in Congress opposed that request and argued the justices should instead hold on to their April 29 [2026] ruling until after the election because voting in the primary has already begun.
..... The court's response to the emergency request was unsigned, but in a concurrence, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Louisiana should not have the use a map found to be unconstitutional. There's still time, he suggested, for the state legislature to adopt an new map.
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In dissent, Justice Ketanli Brown Jackson said the court's decisions have "spawned chaos" in Louisiana.
..... On April 30, [2026] Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry put the May primary on hold, giving the state legislature time to approve a new map that could allow Republicans to gain one or two seats. That suspension is separates being challenged in court.
..... A different court must decide how to apply the Supreme Court's ruling invalidating the existentialist map. Before those judges can do so, the Supreme court must makes its decision to them, which makes the ruling final.
..... In the Supreme Court's new opinion, a majority said that Black voters who lost the case "have not expressed any intent to ask this Court to reconsider its judgment."
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"And the need for prompt action by this Court is clear," Alito wrote.
..... Jackson said the court looked like it was putting a partisan thumb on the scale by curtailing the normal waiting period, over the Blake voters' objections.
..... "To avoid the appearance of partiality her, we could, as per usual, opt to stay on the sidelines and take no position by applying our default procedures," Jackson wrote. "but today, [05/04/2026] the court choses the opposite."
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State officials told the Supreme Court ti did not mater to them how quickly the justices act. The timeline won't affect the state's ability to produce a new map and electoral process for this year's [2026] election, Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill wrote.
..... Once that happens, she said, the lower court won't need to get involved.
..... The map that an ideologically divided Supreme Court rejected in a 6-3 vote A group of self-described non-Black voters sued, arguing a "racial quota" cost the state a Republican seat in a narrowly divided Congress.
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The district had been created to protect the voting power of Louisiana's Black residents, who make up one-third of the state's population.