The Supreme Court is stepping into a dispute over the consideration of race in devising Louisiana's congressional map.

The case has no bearing on the 2024 election, which will use the current map that has two black-majority districts.

Supreme Court steps in

The legal battle has been stretching on for two years now, since Republicans drew up a new map following the 2020 census.

A federal court ordered the state to create a new map after a successful legal challenge from civil rights groups. The plaintiffs argued that a map with only one black-majority district had violated the Voting Rights Act's ban on diluting the votes of minorities.

But the legal controversy didn't end there. A separate set of plaintiffs filed their own challenge, arguing the new map improperly considered race.

Racial discrimination?

The group of "non-African American" voters argued the current map was based on "explicit, racial segregation of voters and intentional discrimination."

Lawyers for Phillip Callais and 11 other plaintiffs said Louisiana "should be ashamed" for devising a racially motivated map that "over-represents Black voters."

An appeals court agreed that the new map was an illegal racial gerrymander and blocked its use for the election. But the Supreme Court satisfied an emergency appeal from civil rights groups and Louisiana to use the challenged map in 2024.

"Ping pong"

Louisiana's Republicans have expressed frustration at being stuck in an "endless game of ping-ping" over racial representation, asking the court to step in and resolve the issue.

"Cases like this illustrate that there is seemingly no end to the torture-by-litigation that States endure after every redistricting cycle," Republicans told the court.

A civil rights group siding with Louisiana, The Legal Defense Fund, argues the lower court's ruling will further entangle the courts into the redistricting process "and deprive states of the necessary flexibility to take account of other legislative priorities when they act to remedy identified violations.”

The legal controversy will have no impact on the balance of power in the next Congress, since the current, challenged map has already been approved by the Supreme Court for this year's elections.

Disputes over racial representation have gone before the Supreme Court many times before. The controversies often have a partisan bent, since the addition of majority-black districts as a remedy for discrimination tends to reward Democrats.