Louisiana
Court allows Louisiana to move forward with two majority-Black districts – SCOTUSblog
EMERGENCY DOCKET
on May 15, 2024
at 6:14 pm
The justices ruled on Louisiana’s voting map on Wednesday. (Guyyoung1966 via Wikimedia Commons)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for Louisiana to use a new congressional map, containing two majority-Black districts, in the 2024 elections. In a brief unsigned order the justices blocked a ruling by a federal court that had barred the state from using the new map on the ground that legislators had relied too heavily on race when they drew it earlier this year. The order cited an election doctrine known as the Purcell principle – the idea that courts should not change election rules during the period just before an election because of the confusion that it will cause for voters and the problems that doing so could cause for election officials. The lower court’s order will remain on hold, the court indicated, while an appeal to the Supreme Court moves forward.
Defending the 2024 map, the Louisiana secretary of state had emphasized that the legislature had created the map in the wake of a ruling by another federal court holding that an earlier map, which contained only one majority-Black district, violated the Voting Rights Act.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented from Wednesday’s order. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan indicated only that they would have denied the requests to put the federal court’s ruling on hold. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, explaining that in her view it is too early for Purcell to apply and there was no reason for the Supreme Court to intervene at this stage.
The dispute has its roots in a challenge by Black voters and civil rights groups to the congressional map that the Louisiana legislature drew for the 2022 elections. Although the 2020 census revealed that Black people made up approximately a third of the state’s population, in February 2022, the legislature adopted a plan, known as H.B.1, that created only one (out of six districts) majority-Black district, which stretched northwest from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ruled that H.B.1 likely violated the federal Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rejected a request from the state officials and Republican legislators defending the maps to put the judge’s decision on hold, but the Supreme Court paused the case until it issued its decision in June of last year in a similar challenge to Alabama’s congressional map.
After the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts, the 5th Circuit upheld Dick’s ruling that Louisiana likely violated the Voting Rights Act. The court of appeals gave the legislature until January 2024 to create a new plan.
In January, the legislature adopted – and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed – a new map, known as S.B.8, that contained two majority-Black districts.
Nine days later, a group of 12 white voters went to a different federal court, where they argued that S.B.8 is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander – that is, it sorted voters based primarily on their race.
On April 30, a divided three-judge district court barred the state from using S.B.8 in future elections, holding that legislators had relied too heavily on race in drawing the map. Louisiana’s secretary of state indicated that May 15 would be the last day to adopt a new map for the 2024 elections, but the district court set a schedule that would lead to a new map by June 4.
Both Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry (who is not related to Gov. Jeff Landry) and the Black voters and civil rights groups who had challenged H.B.1 came to the Supreme Court earlier this month, asking the justices to put on hold the district court’s order prohibiting the use of S.B.8, as well as the proceedings to come up with a new map.
Landry told the Supreme Court that race was not the primary factor behind the state’s decision to enact S.B.8. Instead, she wrote, the legislature was motivated by the court orders indicating that the state would likely violate the Voting Rights Act unless two of the six congressional districts were majority Black. Turning those rulings “back on the Legislature would be a wholly unfair game of gotcha that this Court has never endorsed.”
The H.B.1 challengers echoed Landry’s contention, calling the district court’s order barring the state from using the 2024 map an “aggressive incursion on state sovereignty” that leaves the state “trapped between the competing hazards of liability under the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause,” which prohibits racial gerrymandering.
The legislature ultimately chose the 2024 map, Landry and the H.B.1 challengers contended, over other proposed versions because S.B.8 achieves the legislature’s political goals – specifically, protecting the districts of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Rep. Julia Letlow at the expense of Rep. Garret Graves, who had supported Landry’s opponent.
Landry urged the justices to act by May 15, calling the dispute a “textbook case” for a stay of the lower court’s decision under the Purcell principle. “Even marginally moving that date,” Landry suggested, “will result in chaos down the line as other deadlines are blown and election officials struggle to complete their tasks within further compressed timelines.” Otherwise, Landry told the court, the only map that the state would be able to use “and still avoid election case” is the H.B.1 map.
The voters challenging S.B.8 countered that the district court’s ruling barring the state from using S.B.8 was a “simple and straightforward application of the law to the facts.” The state’s overriding goal in drawing the map was to create two majority-Black districts, they maintained, so that it could avoid additional litigation over H.B.1. The secretary of state’s insistence that the legislature drew the two majority-Black districts to comply with the court orders rings hollow, the S.B.8 challengers argued, because the district court never issued a final ruling on whether “the VRA actually required a second majority-Black district in the State — much less on whether District 6 stretching from the Northwest to Southeast corners of the State could remedy any alleged violation.”
The S.B.8 challengers also pushed back against the suggestion that there was any need for the Supreme Court to put the district court’s order on hold, much less do so quickly. The district court is already slated to issue a new map by June 4, they noted, and the May 15 deadline posited by the secretary of state, they say, “is simply an invention for this litigation”: Both the secretary of state and the state told the Supreme Court last year that the election could go forward as long as a map was in place by late May. Moreover, they added, “despite the State’s oddly shrill and last-minute warnings of chaos, this leaves ample time” to adopt a new map and take the necessary steps “before November’s primary.”
In its brief order, the majority cited the Purcell principle, signaling that it was putting the April 30 decision by the district court on hold because of the looming 2024 elections. But in her dissent, Jackson contended that “Purcell has no role to play here. There is little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed this far out from the November election,” she suggested. And she noted that the justices “have often denied stays of redistricting orders issued as close or closer to an election.”
“Rather than wading in now,” Jackson continued, she “would have let the District Court’s remedial process run its course before considering whether our emergency intervention was warranted.”
This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.
The Louisiana Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at March 2, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from March 2 drawing
02-17-18-38-62, Powerball: 20, Power Play: 2
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Pick 3 numbers from March 2 drawing
3-9-9
Check Pick 3 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Pick 4 numbers from March 2 drawing
4-1-1-0
Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Pick 5 numbers from March 2 drawing
0-5-2-9-5
Check Pick 5 payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your lottery prize
All Louisiana Lottery retailers will redeem prizes up to $600. For prizes over $600, winners can submit winning tickets through the mail or in person at Louisiana Lottery offices. Prizes of over $5,000 must be claimed at Lottery office.
By mail, follow these instructions:
- Sign and complete the information on the back of your winning ticket, ensuring all barcodes are clearly visible (remove all scratch-off material from scratch-off tickets).
- Photocopy the front and back of the ticket (except for Powerball and Mega Millions tickets, as photocopies are not accepted for these games).
- Complete the Louisiana Lottery Prize Claim Form, including your telephone number and mailing address for prize check processing.
- Photocopy your valid driver’s license or current picture identification.
Mail all of the above in a single envelope to:
Louisiana Lottery Headquarters
555 Laurel Street
Baton Rouge, LA 70801
To submit in person, visit Louisiana Lottery headquarters:
555 Laurel Street, Baton Rouge, LA 70801, (225) 297-2000.
Hours: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. This office can cash prizes of any amount.
Check previous winning numbers and payouts at Louisiana Lottery.
When are the Louisiana Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 9:59 p.m. CT Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 10 p.m. CT Tuesday and Friday.
- Pick 3, Pick 4 and Pick 5: Daily at 9:59 p.m. CT.
- Easy 5: 9:59 p.m. CT Wednesday and Saturday.
- Lotto: 9:59 p.m. CT Wednesday and Saturday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Louisiana editor. You can send feedback using this form.
NEW ORLEANS — The Louisiana National Guard announced Monday that 120 troops will remain deployed in New Orleans through August.
The six-month extension comes after 350 Guard members deployed to New Orleans in late December, in the run-up to New Year’s and other high-profile events like the Sugar Bowl. The troops, which had mainly clustered in the city’s historic French Quarter, had been scheduled to depart in the aftermath of Mardi Gras.
New Orleans is one of several Democrat-run cities, such as Washington and Memphis, Tennessee, where the federal government deployed armed troops under the administration of President Donald Trump. Hundreds of federal agents also converged on Louisiana in December as part of a separate immigration crackdown in and around New Orleans.
During his State of the Union address last week, Trump touted the deployment in New Orleans as a “big success.” In January, Trump credited the troops with reducing the city’s violent crime within a week of their deployment. City police data shows violent crime rates have significantly declined over the past three years in parallel with national trends.
According to a press statement from the Louisiana National Guard, the remaining guard members will serve as a “visible presence to deter criminal activity in New Orleans.”
New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno, a Democrat who initially opposed the deployment, said that the troops would benefit the city in the coming weeks. She pointed out that National Guard troops had assisted the city during last year’s Mardi Gras in the aftermath of a vehicle-ramming attack in the French Quarter that killed 14 people on New Year’s Day.
“I continue to support the partnership with the LA National Guard to assist in our major events and there are several coming up in the next few weeks,” Moreno said in a statement.
While Moreno did not address which events she referred to, visitors flock to New Orleans in the spring for events like the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican and staunch Trump ally, requested the deployment of the National Guard last September, citing rising violent crime rates in New Orleans despite the data showing crime was down.
“This continued deployment will help us combat violence in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana,” Landry wrote on the social platform X on Monday, noting Louisiana had also sent National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., last year.
Kate Kelly, a spokesperson for Landry, said the federal government would cover the cost of the extended deployment. She did not respond to a question about whether Guard members would be deployed outside New Orleans.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Friloux, adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard, said in a statement the troops had already worked closely with other city, state and federal agencies to improve public safety during a stretch of high-profile events in the city, including the flood of visitors over Mardi Gras and the city’s carnival season.
“We remain committed to those partnerships as we continue supporting efforts to keep the City of New Orleans safe for residents and visitors,” Friloux said.
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Jury selection begins Monday in what prosecutors describe as one of the largest auto insurance fraud cases in Louisiana history, with two local attorneys set to stand trial on charges that include fraud and obstruction of justice.
Attorneys Vanessa Motta and Jason Giles are accused in an alleged scheme in which drivers — referred to as “slammers” — were paid to intentionally crash into 18-wheelers, file injury lawsuits and allow attorneys to collect the settlements. Both have pleaded not guilty.
63 people have been charged in the case. Many have already pleaded guilty. Motta and Giles are being tried together.
Criminal defense attorney Craig Mordock, who is not directly involved in the case but has been following it closely, said the scope of the litigation is significant.
“You have 10 years of personal injury cases and almost… almost a billion dollars in recovery. That’s all at issue,” Mordock said. “So yeah, this could go two to three weeks.”
Motta’s defense team has advanced a narrative that she was manipulated by a co-defendant.
“There is a compelling narrative that’s been advanced by Vanessa Motta’s lawyer in terms of her being manipulated by one of the co-defendants… about being manipulated by him and him having a prior federal conviction for fraud,” Mordock said.
Motta’s team originally claimed she did not know the crashes were staged. In 2024, her team told FOX 8 she is the victim.
Mordock said Giles faces a more difficult defense.
“I don’t see a favorable juror for one of the other lawyer defendants, Jason Giles. There’s not a clear theory of innocence. This is basically a standard white-collar prosecution where knowledge and intent are going to be the issue,” Mordock said.
The case carries what Mordock described as a shadow. In September 2020, key witness Cornelious Garrison was killed in New Orleans four days after his name appeared in an indictment. Garrison’s admitted killer, Ryan Harris, is expected to testify.
The judge in the case is also allowing the slain witness’s recorded descriptions of the alleged scheme to be admitted at trial.
Mordock said Louisiana drivers have a direct stake in the outcome.
“As your average Louisianan, the idea would be you would save… because the people committing this fraud have been wrapped up. The insurance companies are going to know how to look for this,” Mordock said.
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