Federal judges strike down La. congressional map with second Black-majority district

A federal three-judge panel on Tuesday threw out Louisiana’s recently redrawn congressional map which would have created a second majority Black district, leaving the state without a settled congressional map some six months before the November elections.

In the 2-1 ruling, the 5th Circuit panel found that the redistricting map approved by the Louisiana legislature, in a measure known as SB8, which established a second majority-Black congressional district in the state, “violates the Equal Protection Clause [of the 14th Amendment] as an impermissible racial gerrymander.”