Amicus Curiae Brief — Louisiana, Appellant v. Phillip Callais, et al.

Supreme Court briefDec 20, 2024

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Nos. 24-109, 24-110

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

_______________________

STATE OF LOUISIANA,

Appellant,

PHILLIP CALLAIS, ET AL.,

Appellees.

__________

PRESS ROBINSON, ET AL.,

Appellants,

PHILLIP CALLAIS, ET AL.,

Appellees.

______________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for

the Western District of Louisiana

______________________

BRIEF OF CONSTITUTIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY

CENTER AS AMICUS CURIAE

IN SUPPORT OF APPELLANTS

_______________________

ELIZABETH B. WYDRA

BRIANNE J. GOROD*

DAVID H. GANS

ANNA K. JESSURUN

CONSTITUTIONAL

ACCOUNTABILITY CENTER

1200 18th Street NW, Suite 501

Washington, D.C. 20036

(202) 296-6889

brianne@theusconstitution.org

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

December 20, 2024

* Counsel of Record

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES .................................

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ......................

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT.................................................................

ARGUMENT .........................................................

The District Court’s Conclusion that

SB8 Is a Racial Gerrymander Is Irreconcilable with this Court’s Precedents

and Would Tie the Hands of State Legislatures Seeking to Comply with the

Voting Rights Act..................................

The District Court’s Decision Thwarts

Section 2’s Ability to Enforce the Guarantees of the Fifteenth Amendment ....

CONCLUSION .....................................................

II.

(i)

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Page(s)

Abbott v. Perez,

585 U.S. 579 (2018) ................................... 2, 3

Ala. Legis. Black Caucus v. Alabama,

575 U.S. 254 (2015) .................................... 8, 16

Alexander v. S.C. State Conf. of the

NAACP,

602 U.S. 1 (2024) ............................... 3, 6, 10-12

Allen v. Milligan,

599 U.S. 1 (2023) ....................... 3, 4, 8, 9, 14, 15

Burns v. Richardson,

384 U.S. 73 (1966) ......................................

Bush v. Vera,

517 U.S. 952 (1996) ....................... 2, 3, 6, 8, 13

Cooper v. Harris,

581 U.S. 285 (2017) .................................. 12, 13

Easley v. Cromartie,

532 U.S. 234 (2001) .................................. 10, 12

Growe v. Emison,

507 U.S. 25 (1993) ......................................

Hunt v. Cromartie,

526 U.S. 541 (1999) .................................... 8, 9

Johnson v. De Grandy,

512 U.S. 997 (1994) ....................................

Lane v. Wilson,

307 U.S. 268 (1939) ....................................

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES – cont’d

Page(s)

League of United Latin Am. Citizens v.

Perry,

548 U.S. 399 (2006) ........................... 4, 6, 9, 12

Miller v. Johnson,

515 U.S. 900 (1995) ...................... 4, 6, 8, 11, 14

North Carolina v. Covington,

585 U.S. 969 (2018) ....................................

Rice v. Cayetano,

528 U.S. 495 (2000) ....................................

Robinson v. Ardoin,

86 F.4th 574 (5th Cir. 2023) ......................

Shaw v. Hunt,

517 U.S. 899 (1996) ............................... 4, 6, 12

Shaw v. Reno,

509 U.S. 630 (1993) ....................................

Thornburg v. Gingles,

478 U.S. 30 (1986) ......................................

Village of Arlington Heights v. Metro.

Hous. Dev. Corp.,

429 U.S. 252 (1977) ....................................

Voinovich v. Quilter,

507 U.S. 146 (1993) .................................... 6, 7

Wise v. Lipscomb,

437 U.S. 535 (1978) ....................................

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES – cont’d

Page(s)

Statutes and Legislative Materials

S. Rep. No. 97-417 (1982) ..............................

52 U.S.C. § 10301(a) ......................................

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE1

Amicus Constitutional Accountability Center

(CAC) is a think tank and public interest law firm dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history. CAC works in our courts,

through our government, and with legal scholars to

improve understanding of the Constitution and to preserve the rights, freedoms, and structural safeguards

that our nation’s charter guarantees. CAC has a

strong interest in the scope of the protections of the

Fifteenth Amendment, as well as the Voting Rights

Act, and accordingly has an interest in this case.

INTRODUCTION AND

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

After three separate federal courts held that Louisiana’s congressional map likely violated Section 2 of

the Voting Rights Act, the Louisiana Legislature

(“Legislature”) enacted its current congressional

map—SB8—to redress that violation, while also accomplishing other political objectives. The court below, however, held the Legislature’s actions unconstitutional, concluding that its decision to create a second

majority Black district (as was required to remedy the

Section 2 violation), while furthering other permissible

redistricting goals, resulted in a racial gerrymander.

This result is at odds with this Court’s precedents and

undermines effective enforcement of Section 2 and the

Fifteenth Amendment.

1 Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 37.6, amicus curiae states

that no counsel for a party authored this brief in whole or in part,

and no party or counsel for a party made a monetary contribution

intended to fund the preparation or submission of this brief. No

person other than amicus curiae or its counsel made a monetary

contribution to its preparation or submission.

The Legislature’s enactment of SB8 is a quintessential example of a state legislature’s redistricting

discretion in action. After years of litigation on the

Robinson Appellants’ Section 2 challenge to the Legislature’s 2022 congressional map (“Robinson litigation”), the Fifth Circuit directed the Legislature to enact a map to redress the Section 2 violation. See Robinson v. Ardoin, 86 F.4th 574, 601 (5th Cir. 2023). The

Fifth Circuit also instructed the Robinson district

court to set the case for trial and, if necessary, impose

a remedial map before the 2024 election if the Legislature failed to enact a map to redress the Section 2 violation. See id. at 602. The Legislature chose the

course that “promised to simplify and reduce the burden of litigation,” Abbott v. Perez, 585 U.S. 579, 614

(2018), and enacted SB8.

SB8 checked a lot of boxes: it complied with Section 2 and resolved the Robinson litigation by following

the federal courts’ guidance to add another majority

Black district, see Robinson Appellants J.S. App. (“J.S.

App.”) 393a; it preserved the congressional seats of the

U.S Representatives whom the Legislature wanted to

protect, see id. at 392a-93a; and it respected communities of interest, see, e.g., id. at 421a. Simply put, the

Legislature used its redistricting “flexibility,” Bush v.

Vera, 517 U.S. 952, 978 (1996) (plurality), to enact a

remedial map that also achieved its other permissible

redistricting objectives.

In reviewing that map and concluding that it was

an unlawful racial gerrymander, the court below made

three fundamental errors, thereby usurping the Legislature’s prerogative to enact a remedial map. First,

the district court treated the Legislature’s stated intention to create a second majority Black district (as

three federal courts had said it was required to do under Section 2) as virtually decisive evidence of racial

predominance. In doing so, the court erroneously

made the Legislature’s goal of complying with Section

2 inherently constitutionally suspect. This is irreconcilable with this Court’s repeated assertions that the

consciousness of race required to create a Section 2 district does not automatically trigger strict scrutiny. See

Allen v. Milligan, 599 U.S. 1, 33 (2023); Vera, 517 U.S.

at 958 (plurality). As Milligan reaffirmed, “Section 2

itself ‘demands consideration of race.’” Milligan, 599

U.S. at 30-31 (plurality) (quoting Abbott, 585 U.S. at

587).

Second, the district court dismissed the Legislature’s clearly stated political goals as not credible. As

the record makes clear, the Legislature chose SB8 over

alternative Section 2-compliant maps because SB8

preserved the seats of certain U.S. Representatives.

And as this Court underscored earlier this year, “[i]f

either politics or race could explain a district’s contours,” race did not predominate. Alexander v. S.C.

State Conf. of the NAACP, 602 U.S. 1, 10 (2024). Thus,

the district court was wrong to ignore the Legislature’s

political aims, thereby stamping out the Legislature’s

discretion to enact a remedial map that furthered its

other permissible redistricting objectives while also

complying with Section 2.

And third, the district court required SB8 to satisfy the first Gingles precondition in its narrow tailoring analysis, see J.S. App. 177a-78a, 182a; see also

Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30, 50 (1986) (explaining that, to state a Section 2 vote dilution claim, plaintiffs must first “demonstrate that [the minority group]

is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority in a single-member district”). While

Gingles is relevant to Section 2 liability, it is irrelevant

to the lawfulness of a remedial map. In fact, this Court

has never required a remedial map to independently

meet the Gingles requirements to overcome narrow

tailoring. This is because state legislatures have

“broad discretion” to draw Section 2 districts, Shaw v.

Hunt, 517 U.S. 899, 917 n.9 (1996) (hereinafter Shaw

II), including the discretion to create noncompact remedial districts to advance their political goals.

The cumulative effect of these errors was to make

it virtually impossible for the Legislature to consider

the “complex interplay of forces” at play when redistricting and to tie the Legislature’s hands as it sought

to comply with Section 2. Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S.

900, 915-16 (1995); id. at 915 (noting that when a state

legislature undertakes the complicated task of redistricting, it “must have discretion to exercise the political judgment necessary to balance competing interests”). The decision of the court below cannot be

squared with this Court’s repeated emphasis on the

importance of legislative discretion over redistricting

and its longstanding preference for legislatively-enacted maps over court-imposed ones. See League of

United Latin Am. Citizens v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399, 416

(2006) (plurality) (hereinafter LULAC).

And by undermining the Legislature’s ability to redress Section 2 violations, the court below also frustrated Section 2’s ability to further the Fifteenth

Amendment’s promise of equal opportunity in voting.

Congress passed Section 2’s prohibition on vote dilution to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination in voting and prevent states from

using redistricting to weaken the voting strength of

voters of color. See Milligan, 599 U.S. at 17-18. The

Legislature in turn enacted SB8 to comply with Section 2 and give Black Louisianans the ability to elect

congressional candidates of their choice under the new

map.

By invalidating SB8, the district court undermined Section 2’s ability to redress vote dilution and

threatened to weaken the Fifteenth Amendment’s

power to prevent “contrivances by a state to thwart

equality in the enjoyment of the right to vote . . . regardless of race or color.” Lane v. Wilson, 307 U.S. 268,

275 (1939). The judgment of the district court should

be reversed.

ARGUMENT

I. The District Court’s Conclusion that SB8 Is

a Racial Gerrymander Is Irreconcilable

with this Court’s Precedents and Would Tie

the Hands of State Legislatures Seeking to

Comply with the Voting Rights Act.

When a federal court finds a constitutional or Section 2 violation in a redistricting plan, state legislatures must be given the opportunity to enact a remedial map to cure the violation of federal law, and they

should be afforded discretion in determining how best

to cure that violation. Here, by treating the Legislature’s stated intention to create a second majority

Black district as virtually decisive evidence of racial

predominance, disregarding the Legislature’s political

motivations in drawing the map, and requiring it to

satisfy a condition that is only relevant to Section 2

liability, the court below ran afoul of this Court’s precedents and inappropriately tied the Legislature’s

hands, replacing the flexibility to which it was entitled

with a “straight-jacket,” J.S. App. 192a (Stewart, J.,

dissenting).

A. Because “the Constitution vests redistricting

responsibilities foremost in the legislatures of the

States and in Congress, a lawful, legislatively enacted

plan should be preferable to one drawn by the courts.”

LULAC, 548 U.S. at 416 (plurality). Thus, “[a]bsent

evidence that [a state] will fail timely to perform [its

redistricting] duty, a federal court must neither affirmatively obstruct state reapportionment nor permit

federal litigation to be used to impede it.” Growe v.

Emison, 507 U.S. 25, 34 (1993); see Wise v. Lipscomb,

437 U.S. 535, 540 (1978) (opinion of White, J.) (“When

a federal court declares an existing apportionment

scheme unconstitutional, it is therefore, appropriate,

whenever practicable, to afford a reasonable opportunity for the legislature to meet constitutional requirements by adopting a substitute measure rather

than for the federal court to devise and order into effect

its own plan.”).

When creating remedial maps, “‘[s]tates retain

broad discretion in drawing districts to comply with

the mandate of § 2,’ and . . . § 2 itself imposes ‘no per

se prohibitions against particular types of districts.’”

LULAC, 548 U.S. at 506 (Roberts, C.J., concurring in

part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part) (citations omitted) (quoting Shaw II, 517

U.S. at 917 n.9, and Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U.S. 146,

155 (1993)); Vera, 517 U.S. at 978 (plurality) (“the

States retain a flexibility that federal courts enforcing

§ 2 lack”). Also, because “[l]egislators are almost always aware of the political ramifications of the maps

they adopt,” Alexander, 602 U.S. at 6, “States must

have discretion to exercise the political judgment necessary to balance competing interests” when redistricting, Miller, 515 U.S. at 915, including when crafting remedial maps.

When assessing a state’s redistricting map, courts

must therefore “be sensitive to the complex interplay

of forces that enter a legislature’s redistricting calculus.” Id. at 915-16. Indeed, “federal courts are bound

to respect the States’ apportionment choices unless

those choices contravene federal requirements.”

Voinovich, 502 U.S. at 156; see North Carolina v. Covington, 585 U.S. 969, 979 (2018) (per curiam) (“a legislature’s ‘freedom of choice to devise substitutes for an

apportionment plan found unconstitutional, either as

a whole or in part, should not be restricted beyond the

clear commands’ of federal law” (quoting Burns v.

Richardson, 384 U.S. 73, 85, 86 (1966))).

B. Notwithstanding the discretion the Legislature

should have enjoyed in deciding how best to redress

the Section 2 violation, the court below treated the

Legislature’s stated intention to create a second majority Black district as virtually decisive evidence of

racial predominance.

According to the court below, when it came to

choosing SB8, “the State first made the decision to create a majority-Black district and, only then, did political considerations factor into the State’s creation of

District 6.” J.S. App. 174a. In other words, according

to the district court, any stated compliance with the

Voting Rights Act, particularly when a legislature acts

to remedy a Section 2 violation, constitutes racial predominance. Cf. Callais Mot. 18, 20 (arguing that because Louisiana drew SB8 with two majority Black

districts as a result of the Robinson litigation, “race

predominated”).

This reasoning is irreconcilable with this Court’s

repeated recognition that the race consciousness required to adhere to Section 2’s command—as states

must do under federal law—does not automatically

trigger strict scrutiny, even if a legislature decides to

create a majority-minority district as a result. As a

plurality of this Court put it most recently, “[w]hen it

comes to considering race in the context of districting,

we have made clear that there is a difference ‘between

being aware of racial considerations and being motivated by them.’” See, e.g., Milligan, 599 U.S. at 30

(plurality) (quoting Miller, 515 U.S. at 916); Vera, 517

U.S. at 958 (plurality) (citations omitted) (“Strict scrutiny does not apply merely because redistricting is performed with consciousness of race. Nor does it apply

to all cases of intentional creation of majority-minority

districts.”); id. at 962 (“the decision to create a majority-minority district [is not] objectionable in and of itself”); Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630, 646 (1993) (hereinafter Shaw I) (explaining that awareness of race in redistricting “does not lead inevitably to impermissible

race discrimination”). That is because “[t]he question

whether additional majority-minority districts can be

drawn”—a crucial part of the inquiry demanded by the

Voting Rights Act—“involves a ‘quintessentially raceconscious calculus.’” Milligan, 599 U.S. at 31 (plurality) (quoting Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1020

(1994)).

Under this Court’s case law, to establish racial

predominance, plaintiffs must prove that “race for its

own sake, and not other districting principles, was the

legislature’s dominant and controlling rationale in

drawing its” district lines, Miller, 515 U.S. at 913, such

that the map’s contours are “unexplainable on grounds

other than race,” Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U.S. 541, 546

(1999) (hereinafter Cromartie I) (quoting Shaw I, 509

U.S. at 644). In other words, “circumstantial evidence

of a district’s legislative shape and demographics or

more direct evidence going to legislative purpose”

must establish “that race was the predominant factor

motivating the legislature’s decision to place a significant number of voters within or without a particular

district.” Ala. Legis. Black Caucus v. Alabama, 575

U.S. 254, 266-67 (2015) (hereinafter ALBC) (quoting

Miller, 515 U.S. at 916).

Thus, even though “the line between racial predominance and racial consciousness can be difficult to

discern,” Milligan, 599 U.S. at 31 (plurality), courts

must find it. The district court here did not even attempt to do so. Contrary to this Court’s precedents,

the court did not conduct a careful analysis of district

lines. Instead, the court assumed that the bare fact

that the Legislature drew an additional majority-minority district meant that race necessarily predominated. In doing so, it erroneously elevated the Legislature’s desire to follow the federal courts’ instructions

that it create a second majority Black district to comply with Section 2 into decisive evidence of racial predominance and failed to conduct the “sensitive inquiry” necessary to assess the Legislature’s motivations. Cromartie I, 526 U.S. at 546 (quoting Village of

Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S.

252, 266 (1977)).

The upshot of the district court’s reasoning is that

the Legislature’s decision to enact a remedial map was

inherently constitutionally suspect and susceptible to

another round of federal court litigation. This is at

odds with this Court’s repeated assertions that a “legislatively enacted plan should be preferable to one

drawn by the courts.” LULAC, 548 U.S. at 416 (plurality). If the district court were right, then any remedial map drawn by a state legislature in response to

judicial findings of a Section 2 violation would trigger

strict scrutiny. That is plainly incorrect and would upend this Court’s well-settled Voting Rights Act jurisprudence, recently reaffirmed in Milligan, which imposes on states the duty to take account of race to ensure fair maps that give citizens of all races equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. See Milligan, 599 U.S. at 33 (rejecting dissent’s view that

drawing a majority Black district would prove racial

predominance because that result would require overruling the established Section 2 framework).

C. In addition to limiting the Legislature’s ability

to consider the need to redress the Section 2 violation—and, indeed, the federal courts’ directions about

how to redress that violation—the court below also discredited the political motivations that drove the Legislature’s selection of SB8 and thereby frustrated the

Legislature’s ability to pursue its non-remedial goals

when drawing the remedial map.

In mixed-motive racial gerrymandering cases

where, as here, “the State has articulated a legitimate

political explanation for its districting decision,” Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U.S. 234, 242 (2001) (hereinafter

Cromartie II), courts must “[rule] out the competing

explanation that political considerations,” rather than

race, “dominated the legislature’s redistricting efforts.” Alexander, 602 U.S. at 9-10. “If either politics

or race could explain a district’s contours, the plaintiff

has not cleared its bar.” Id. at 10.

Political considerations in fact do explain the borders of CD6, the majority Black district created by

SB8. Senator Womack explained again and again that

SB8 created a majority Black district in CD6 to safeguard the congressional seat of an incumbent representative, Julia Letlow. See, e.g., J.S. App. 392a, 420a,

441a. Indeed, SB8 was enacted over a more compact

alternative that also contained two majority Black districts precisely because only SB8 furthered the Legislature’s political goal of protecting Representative

Letlow’s seat. Id. at 395a. An amendment to further

secure Representative Letlow’s seat was passed, see id.

at 401a, and an amendment that increased the Black

voting age population of CD2 and CD6 “for no particular reason other than to do so” failed, see id. at 115a.

Simply put, the Legislature enacted SB8 to accomplish

its political goals, while also complying with the Robinson district court’s ruling. Under this Court’s

decision in Alexander, this readily apparent political

motivation precludes a racial predominance finding.

Indeed, it shows that the Legislature considered and

took account of a wide variety of districting factors, seriously undercutting the court’s view that race drove

the Legislature’s decisionmaking.

The court below, however, cast aside the Legislature’s political aims, opining that “it is not credible

that Louisiana’s majority-Republican Legislature

would choose to draw a map that eliminated a Republican-performing district for predominantly political

purposes.” J.S. App. 173a. Because the court found it

“difficult to fathom that Louisiana Republicans would

intentionally concede a seat to a Democratic candidate,” it concluded that “District 6 was drawn primarily to create a second majority-Black district,” and

“[t]hus, it is clear that race was the driving force and

predominant factor behind the creation of District 6.”

Id. at 173a-74a.

The district court should not have second-guessed

the Legislature’s clearly stated political objectives

based simply on its own conjecture, especially when

the record makes clear that SB8 was chosen precisely

because it achieved those political objectives. The

court’s outright dismissal of the Legislature’s express

political aims is a far cry from the “extraordinary caution” that this Court has instructed federal courts to

take when adjudicating mixed-motive cases. Alexander, 602 U.S. at 7 (quoting Miller, 515 U.S. at 915-16).

And that error was compounded by the fact that

the court did not require Appellees to provide an alternative map that “show[ed] at the least that the legislature could have achieved its legitimate political objectives in alternative ways that are comparably consistent with traditional districting principles” and

“that those districting alternatives would have

brought about significantly greater racial balance.”

Cromartie II, 532 U.S. at 258; Alexander, 602 U.S. at

35 (“A plaintiff ’s failure to submit an alternative map

. . . should be interpreted by district courts as an implicit concession that the plaintiff cannot draw a map

that undermines the legislature’s defense that the districting lines were ‘based on a permissible, rather than

a prohibited, ground.’” (quoting Cooper v. Harris, 581

U.S. 285, 317 (2017))).

Even more, by failing to give proper weight to the

Legislature’s permissible political goals that motivated the enactment of SB8, the court below undercut

the Legislature’s prerogative to advance its political

priorities while drawing a remedial map.

D. Finally, the district court erroneously required

SB8 to meet the Gingles requirements, which concern

requirements for Section 2 liability, and are not relevant to the lawfulness of a remedial map. Specifically,

the court erred when it concluded that SB8 was not

narrowly tailored because, in its view, the map failed

to satisfy Gingles.

This Court has never required a map enacted to

remedy a Section 2 violation to independently meet the

Gingles requirements. Instead, as long as the legislature has good reasons to believe that a majority-minority district is necessary under Section 2, it has “broad

discretion in drawing districts to comply with [Section

2’s] mandate.” Shaw II, 517 U.S. at 917 n.9. Importantly, Section 2 does not “impos[e] a freestanding

compactness obligation on the States.” LULAC, 548

U.S. at 506 (Roberts, C.J., concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part).

A district drawn to comply with Section 2 can be

noncompact, see id. at 430 (plurality), and it need not

win “beauty contests” against a plaintiff’s preferred

map, Vera, 517 U.S. at 977 (plurality); see id. at 999

(Kennedy, J., concurring) (“While § 2 does not require

a noncompact majority-minority district, neither does

it forbid it, provided that the rationale for creating it

is proper in the first instance. Districts not drawn for

impermissible reasons or according to impermissible

criteria may take any shape, even a bizarre one.”).

Legislatures must only be cautious “not [to] subordinate traditional districting principles to race substantially more than is ‘reasonably necessary’ to avoid § 2

liability.” Id. at 979 (plurality).

Unlike cases in which this Court assessed whether

a proposed map satisfied Gingles to determine

whether a state did, in fact, have a strong basis in evidence that its redistricting was required to comply

with the Voting Rights Act, see, e.g., Cooper, 581 U.S.

at 302, here, three federal courts had already concluded that Section 2 and Gingles likely required a second majority Black congressional district, judgments

to which the Legislature acquiesced. The district court

therefore had no reason to require that SB8 independently meet the Gingles test.

Instead, to determine whether CD6 was narrowly

tailored, the district court only had to evaluate

whether, in drawing the district’s lines to comply with

Section 2, the Legislature subordinated traditional redistricting factors to race as opposed to lawful redistricting aims. Here, the Legislature chose CD6 and

SB8 over other alternatives to further the Legislature’s political goals. That should have ended the narrow tailoring inquiry.

***

In sum, this district court’s conclusion that SB8 is

an unlawful racial gerrymander is completely at odds

with this Court’s precedents. And as a result of those

errors, the district court nullified the Legislature’s

“discretion to exercise the political judgment necessary

to balance competing interests” when drawing remedial maps. Miller, 515 U.S. at 915. It also undermined

Section 2’s ability to realize the promise of the Fifteenth Amendment, as the next Section describes.

II. The District Court’s Decision Thwarts Section 2’s Ability to Enforce the Guarantees of

the Fifteenth Amendment.

By prohibiting maps that dilute the voting

strength of communities of color, Section 2 enforces the

Fifteenth Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination

in voting and thereby strengthens our nation’s multiracial democracy. Here, the district court’s repudiation of a legislatively-enacted map expressly designed

to remedy a judicial finding of vote dilution undercuts

the effective enforcement of Section 2 and, in turn, the

Fifteenth Amendment.

“Fundamental in purpose and effect . . . , the [Fifteenth] Amendment prohibits all provisions denying

or abridging the voting franchise of any citizen or class

of citizens on the basis of race.” Rice v. Cayetano, 528

U.S. 495, 512 (2000). “In the century that followed [its

ratification], however, the Amendment proved little

more than a parchment promise” as states employed

various devices to disenfranchise Black voters and gerrymandered jurisdictions to weaken Black voting

power. Milligan, 599 U.S. at 10. In 1965, Congress

stepped in and used its broad Fifteenth Amendment

enforcement power to pass the Voting Rights Act of

1965, “the most successful civil rights statute in the

history of the Nation.” Id. (quoting S. Rep. No. 97-417

at 111 (1982)).

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act plays a crucial

role in enforcing the Fifteenth Amendment’s promise

of a democracy free from racial discrimination. As

amended in 1982, Section 2 prohibits state practices

that “result[] in a denial or abridgement of the right of

any citizen of the United States to vote on account of

race or color.” 52 U.S.C. § 10301(a). This includes redistricting plans that dilute the voting strength of voters of color by “minimiz[ing] or cancel[ing] out minority voters’ ability to elect their preferred candidates.”

Milligan, 599 U.S. at 18 (internal quotation marks

omitted). By banning vote dilution, Section 2 enforces

the Fifteenth Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination and advances its promise of equal political opportunities for all citizens.

The court below, however, severely undermined

Section 2’s ability to remedy vote dilutive practices and

fulfill the goals of the Fifteenth Amendment. Section

2’s efficacy depends on state legislatures having the

flexibility they need to comply with Section 2’s requirements while pursuing other redistricting goals. The

faithful application of this Court’s precedents ensures

that state legislatures have the leeway they need while

also making clear that, if state legislatures fail to comply with federal law, federal courts will step in to enforce Section 2’s vital protections for voters of color.

Here, after three federal courts agreed that Louisiana’s previous map likely violated Section 2, the Legislature acted to remedy the violation and created a

second majority Black district, as those federal courts

had said Section 2 required. SB8 gives Black Louisianans the ability to elect candidates of their choice and

furthers Section 2’s goal of eradicating dilutive practices that minimize the voting strength of communities

of color. See id. at 17-18. Remedial maps like SB8 are

critical to enforcing Section 2.

The district court’s many legal errors, however, effectively stunted the Legislature’s ability to redress

Section 2 violations and, in turn, undermined Section

2’s ability to advance the guarantees of the Fifteenth

Amendment. The court’s reasoning encourages future

plaintiffs to pursue meritless satellite litigation challenging Section 2 remedial maps, adding unnecessary

delay to the vindication of the Voting Rights Act. This

Court has given state legislatures substantial leeway

to comply with Section 2 without running afoul of the

Fourteenth Amendment so that the law does not “lay

a trap” for state legislatures. ALBC, 575 U.S. at 278.

The district court failed to recognize that. Indeed, absent this Court’s stay, Black Louisianans would have

had to wait even longer to vote under a fair map that

gave them the opportunity to elect candidates of their

choice.

The district court’s ruling, if allowed to stand,

would make it unnecessarily difficult for jurisdictions

to comply with Section 2 and would substantially

threaten Section 2’s ability to protect voters of color,

like the Robinson Appellants here, against vote dilution. That result would be irreconcilable with Section

2’s crucial role in fulfilling the Fifteenth Amendment’s

promise of voting equality.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, this Court should reverse the judgment of the court below.

Respectfully submitted,

ELIZABETH B. WYDRA

BRIANNE J. GOROD*

DAVID H. GANS

ANNA K. JESSURUN

CONSTITUTIONAL

ACCOUNTABILITY CENTER

1200 18th Street NW, Suite 501

Washington, D.C. 20036

(202) 296-6889

brianne@theusconstitution.org

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

December 20, 2024

* Counsel of Record

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.