Supreme Court Justices Question Equal Protection in Louisiana Redistricting Case

Equal Protection and Remedial Action

• ⚖️ Justice Gorsuch inquired about the application of the principle that race-based remedial action must have a logical end point and be temporary, similar to past rulings in school desegregation and university admissions.
• 🎯 The attorney argued that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is tied to current conditions, requiring a totality of the circumstances analysis that looks at present-day racially polarized voting and discrimination, thus not needing an artificial time limit.

Race, Politics, and District Drawing

• 📌 The core of the questioning focused on whether the choice of which majority-minority district to use was based on race (due to Section 2) while the selection of the specific district was driven by political considerations.
• 🏛️ Justice Kavanaugh pressed the attorney on whether compliance with a Section 2 violation finding would always justify drawing a race-based district, especially if the state's choice of district shape was influenced by politics rather than solely by race.

Compelling Interest and Narrow Tailoring

• ⚡ The attorney contended that a previous court order finding a Section 2 violation provides a compelling interest and a good reason for a state to believe it faces Voting Rights Act liability, thus justifying remedial action.
• 🧩 However, Justice Jackson highlighted that even with a compelling interest, the state must still demonstrate narrow tailoring, ensuring race was not used in a way that was unnecessary to remedy the violation or for an illegitimate purpose like partisanship.

Proving Racial Predominance

• 📊 The discussion touched upon whether the court has ever held that race predominates simply because a state draws a district to comply with Section 2.
• 🧐 It was noted that the Supreme Court has previously stated that the intentional creation of a majority-minority district does not, on its own, prove racial predominance.
• 🧑‍⚖️ The attorney affirmed that the plaintiffs' burden in an equal protection case is to disentangle race from politics in situations like this.