The Supreme Court will weigh in on Louisiana's new predominantly black congressional district after the election

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it would take up a new redistricting case Louisiana's congressional map with two predominantly black districts.

The court won't hear arguments until early next year, and the 2024 election will take place under the contested map, which could boost Democrats' chances of retaking the closely divided House of Representatives.

A Lower court had invalidated the map, but judges allowed its use in 2024 after an emergency appeal from the state and civil rights groups.

The question before the justices is whether the state relied too heavily on race in creating a second-majority Black district.

Monday's court order is the latest step in more than two years of federal court battles over Louisiana's congressional districts. In Louisiana, two congressional maps were blocked by lower courts and the Supreme Court intervened twice.

The state's Republican-dominated Legislature created a new congressional map in 2022 to reflect population shifts reflected in the 2020 census. But the changes effectively maintained the status quo of five majority-Republican districts and one Democratic-dominated black district in a state where about a third are black.

Given the size of the state's black population, civil rights activists challenged the map in federal court in Baton Rouge, winning a ruling from U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick that the districts likely discriminated against black voters.

The Supreme Court put Dick's ruling on hold while it considered a similar case from Alabama. The justices allowed both states to use the maps in the 2022 election, even though both had been deemed likely to be discriminatory by federal judges.

The Supreme Court ultimately upheld Alabama's ruling, resulting in a new map and a second district that could elect a black legislator. The justices sent the Louisiana case to federal court in anticipation of new maps for the 2024 election.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave Louisiana lawmakers a deadline of early 2024 to draw a new map or face the possibility of a court-mandated map.

Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, had defended Louisiana's congressional map as the state's attorney general. But now he is calling on lawmakers to adopt a new map with another majority-black district at a special session in January. He supported a map that created a new majority-black district that stretches across the state, connecting parts of the Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge areas.

Another group of plaintiffs, a group of self-identified non-African Americans, filed suit in western Louisiana, claiming that the new map was also illegal because it was too racially biased, in violation of the Constitution. A divided panel of federal judges ruled 2-1 in their favor in April, blocking use of the new card.

The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to put that decision on hold and allow the card to be used.

Attorney General Liz Murrill, whose office defended both maps enacted by lawmakers, called on the court to “provide clearer guidance to legislators and reduce judicial doubt after the legislature has done its job,” based on recent Supreme Court rulings We believe the map is constitutional.”

The state and civil rights groups disagreed over the first map but are now allies.

“Federal law requires that Louisiana have a fair map that reflects the power and voice of the state’s Black communities,” Stuart Naifeh of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund said in a statement. “The state recognized this when it adopted a new map with a second majority-black district in January. Now the Supreme Court must do the same.”

The Supreme Court's vote to use the controversial map in this year's election was unusual in that the dissenting votes came from the three liberal justices who have supported black voters in redistricting cases. But in an opinion written by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, they said their votes were motivated by their view that it was time to draw a new map and by their disagreement with previous court orders approaching an election to block lower elections was called. Court rulings.

“The risk of voter confusion by introducing a new map so far ahead of the November election is low,” Jackson wrote in May.

In determining which districts to use this year, Landry and his allies said the driving factor was politics, not race. The congressional map offers politically safe districts for Republican President Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Some lawmakers have also noted that the only Republican whose district was heavily changed in the new map Rep. Garret Gravessupported a GOP opponent of Landry in last fall's gubernatorial race. Graves chose not to seek re-election under the new map.

Candidates in the new district include Democratic state Sen. Cleo Fields, a black former congresswoman.

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Associated Press writer Sara Cline contributed to this report from Baton Rouge.