Supreme Court voting rights ruling shakes up Georgia redistricting fight

The 11th Circuit ordered a lower to court to reconsider whether Georgia's congressional maps discriminate against Black voters.ATLANTA (CN) — An 11th Circuit panel remanded the redistricting fight over Georgia’s congressional maps to a lower court on Tuesday to review in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling that limited the Voting Rights Act.The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais strictly limited how redistricting maps can remedy racial discrimination. It held Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district should not have been created based on race and was therefore an unconstitutional gerrymander.Similarly, in Georgia, a judge ordered the creation of two new majority-Black Senate districts and three additional majority-Black House districts to remedy vote dilution in the metro Atlanta area and struck down congressional and legislative maps in late 2023.“The appropriate response to such a significant change of law is to vacate and remand, so the district court may reconsider, in the first instance, whether Georgia’s redistricting plans violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act under the updated Callais framework,” the circuit judges wrote in a per curiam opinion.The panel included U.S. Circuit Judges Robin Rosenbaum, a Barack Obama appointee; Barbara Lagoa, a Donald Trump appointee; and Charles Wilson, a Bill Clinton appointee.Georgia appealed the lower court’s judgment enjoining it from employing several redistricting maps, arguing it wrongly concluded Black Georgians experienced vote dilution.“But the Section 2 landscape is different now than it was when Georgia filed its appeal. Georgia and Plaintiffs recognize as much, and few could deny it,” the circuit judges wrote.Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act established a violation when political processes are not equally open to participation by members of a certain race, who have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. It stems from the 15th Amendment’s prohibition on racial discrimination in voting.In Callais, the justices held Section 2 liability arises only when the circumstances give rise to a strong inference of intentional discrimination.“Callais casts Georgia’s arguments in a new light. The district court, however, did not have the benefit of Callais. So we will afford the district court the opportunity to reassess this case under the new standard,” the circuit judges wrote.“We routinely remand cases when the Supreme Court issues an intervening decision that may affect the district court’s analysis of the case,” the panel added.The lower court’s analysis relied on Thornburg v. Gingles, which directed federal courts to review the totality of the circumstances and whether the political process is equally open to minority voters based on “a searching practical evaluation of the past and present reality."After Callais, courts must afford less weight to discrimination that occurred “some time ago” and present-day disparities that are characterized as the ongoing “effects of societal discrimination,” the circuit judges wrote.Under this new precedent, any proposed redistricting plan that fails to disentangle race and partisan goals wrongly intrudes on a state’s prerogative to draw districts based on nonracial factors, and Section 2 liability cannot arise, the panel added.The plaintiffs in the case, including Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., a historically Black fraternity active in civil rights causes, argued lawmakers merely reshuffled Black voters between existing majority-Black districts and manipulated electoral boundaries to form the appearance of “new districts,” without creating new opportunities in areas where vote dilution was proven.They originally challenged Georgia’s plans enacted in 2021, which a judge ruled diminished Black voting power by failing to increase the number of majority-Black districts in the metro Atlanta area after the 2020 census showed increased Black population growth.Like Georgia, Louisiana redrew its congressional districts following the 2020 census and created one majority-Black district out of six total districts. Black voters successfully challenged the redistricting map, and a judge ordered the state to create a second majority-Black district to accurately reflect the Black population before the Supreme Court ultimately upended it in April.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads