Coalition Argues States Need First Opportunity to Redraw Congressional Maps
Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul today, alongside a coalition of 20 attorneys general, urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reaffirm that states, in exercising their responsibility to draw voting districts, should be given the first opportunity to redraw legislative maps in response to court orders identifying likely violations of the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
Raoul and the coalition filed an amicus brief in Louisiana v. Callais supporting Louisiana and a group of Louisiana voters seeking to uphold a congressional map that includes two majority-Black districts.
“Everyone deserves the right to vote, regardless of where they live or the color of their skin,” Raoul said. “As demographics shift around the state of Illinois and across the country, states should have the ability to redraw their legislative maps to ensure everyone has equal voting opportunities.”
In 2022, a Louisiana federal court found the state’s congressional map likely diluted the votes of Black residents and thus violated Section 2 of the VRA. In response, to comply with the VRA, the Louisiana legislature enacted a new map in 2024 that added a second majority-Black district. Later, a different group of voters sued the state, arguing that the map adding a second majority-Black district unconstitutionally preferred Black voters to non-Black voters in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
Although Supreme Court precedent allows states to draw “majority-minority” districts as long as they have good reason to believe they must do so to comply with the VRA, a three-judge court in the Western District of Louisiana barred the state from using the VRA-compliant 2024 map, trapping Louisiana between competing court orders and undermining the state’s ability to craft legislative districts that comply with federal voting rights law. The Supreme Court will decide whether the Western District of Louisiana’s ruling was correct.
Raoul and the attorneys general argue that in assigning elected state legislatures the primary role in redistricting, the Constitution provides breathing room to enact legislative maps that remedy likely VRA violations. The brief explains that the first court order, finding that Louisiana’s 2022 map likely violated the VRA, provided the state with a good reason to believe that its addition of a second majority-Black district was required to comply with the VRA, and so the state did not violate the Constitution in creating it.
Attorney General Raoul filed the brief with the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
