WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative justices expressed concerns Monday about the future of race in redistricting, part of oral arguments in the yearslong fight over a second Black-majority congressional district in Louisiana.

The state and a group of voting rights plaintiffs asked the justices to preserve the state’s current congressional map, drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act requirement that minorities get a chance to elect representatives of their choosing, and throw out a lower-court ruling that found that map violated the Constitution’s prohibition on racial gerrymandering.

The justices sounded open to keeping that current map, but the unusual alliance prompted a raft of questions from the court’s conservative wing that cast doubt about whether the VRA has a future in redistricting cases at all, even if the court does not take that step in this case.

At one point, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch pointed out that Louisiana drew the map to comply with the VRA with the assumption that it would include two majority-Black districts, and questioned whether that made it suspect under the Constitution because it meant race “predominated” the decision-making.

“Isn’t saying race was one consideration another way of saying race predominated? And how do we square that with the 14th Amendment’s promise that race should play no role?” Gorsuch asked.

Stuart C. Naifeh, representing the voting rights plaintiffs, argued that prior court decisions mean that Louisiana should be able to take race into account among other factors in redistricting.

“The fact that race was one thing they were considering when they drew the map does not mean it was the predominant thing. It means that it was one of many considerations that they had,” Naifeh said.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh also questioned whether the applicable section of the VRA, meant to counter historical discrimination, should not apply anymore.

But Kavanaugh and Louisiana Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguiñaga pointed out that specific issue was not directly involved in the current case, which turns on the constitutionality of the current map.

Naifeh argued that conclusions under the portion of the law are always based on evidence of current voting patterns, not historical discrimination.

The case could mean another round of redistricting for Louisiana, potentially impacting the closely divided House. Additionally, experts said the justices’ decision could reverberate to other cases nationwide, including potentially making racial gerrymandering cases harder to bring.

The justices are expected to issue a decision in the case by the conclusion of the court’s term at the end of June.

Louisiana first adopted a congressional map after the 2020 census which included one Black-majority congressional district of the six in the state.

After a lawsuit filed by voting rights groups, a trial court found that map likely violated the VRA and ordered the state draw a new one. The state legislature adopted a second map with a second Black-majority district.

Then a group of self-described “non-African American voters” filed a challenge to the state’s second map and a court ruled that it violated the Constitution.

Aguiñaga argued that the state legislature chose to draw the second map — which complied with the VRA while still preserving the most important Republican incumbents — because of political calculus rather than a decision based on race.

A court had already found the state’s first map likely violated the VRA, and a court-imposed map could endanger the seat held by Speaker Mike Johnson or appropriator Rep. Julia Letlow, Aguiñaga said.

“We’re talking about the Speaker of the House. No rational state gambles with those high stakes seats in that situation,” Aguiñaga said.

Aguiñaga said that although the state adopted a map that “snaked” through the state, legislators should have the “breathing room” to balance political interests rather than have the court assume race was involved.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett at one point acknowledged the political bind the state faced when the legislature drew the map, because it must continue fighting in court and potentially end up with a politically unpalatable map or draw a map of its own.

“If you’re gonna lose, then you risk that the district court’s gonna impose a map on you,” Barrett said.

Separate from the questions about the premise of the VRA, Kavanaugh and Barrett asked how they could use the case to “provide guidance” to states about how to draw congressional districts that comply with both the VRA and Constitution.

Aguiñaga urged the justices to provide guidance on how much flexibility a state has to draw its own map in comparison to “example” maps provided in voting rights litigation, pointing out that the state’s current map has more than two-thirds overlap with one of the examples from the VRA case.

Edward D. Greim, representing the challengers to the second map, argued that the state was not under any court order to draw a new map and the “breathing room” Louisiana asked for should be reserved for “reasonable mistakes” in data, not making broad decisions about the shape of a congressional district.

Democratic appointees to the court pushed back on Greim’s argument, with Justice Elena Kagan asking why Louisiana should have been forced to continue defending its first map instead of making the choice to draw a new one.

“What should Louisiana have done? Louisiana litigated this case. It lost in the district court. It lost twice in the circuit court,” Kagan said.

©2025 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.