Supreme Court Weighs Louisiana Map in Voting Rights Battle Over Black Representation

WASHINGTON — Living in North Baton Rouge is like being on the wrong side of the tracks, Martha Davis said.

There are potholes everywhere that make you feel as if you’re driving on a washboard, southeastern Louisiana residents are still reeling from the loss of medical facilities, and the area has some of the lowest-performing schools in the city, explained Davis, 70.

It’s because of these issues that Davis, who was an educator for more than 40 years, was thrilled to see Cleo Fields, a Democrat, win his bid last year to represent Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District. It was redrawn in 2024 so that the state would have a second majority-Black district and, as a result, a voting map that better reflects the state’s Black population.

“I don’t know [Fields] personally or anything … but I know that he’s a strong champion of education, and that makes me really happy,” Davis told Capital B, her eyes crinkling as she smiled. “I’m just happy to see somebody who looks like me in office. He’s a native of Baton Rouge, so he knows what our needs are.”

But Louisiana’s brand-new majority-Black district is already in jeopardy. Opponents of the district, who refer to themselves as “non-African American” voters, hope to dismantle it, claiming that it’s “costing them one district.”

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case to determine whether Louisiana violated the U.S. Constitution when it used race to redraw its map. The court seemed open to reversing the map, even though the long-standing interpretation of Section 2 of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires protecting Black voting power during the redistricting process.

A decision is expected by the end of June. The court heard oral arguments in March, but in a surprising move, it punted the case, scheduling re-argument for the term that began earlier this month.

The court’s decision could effectively gut Section 2, which legal scholars have described to Capital B as the “last leg” that the Voting Rights Act is standing on, and have major implications for racial representation in Congress. A recent study found that, depending on the outcome, Democrats could lose up to 19 House seats.

This scenario has left Davis and others feeling angry and nervous. They fear that many Black Americans, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, could be left without an advocate in Congress for years to come.

The day before the case was re-heard, Capital B spent time on the steps of the Supreme Court with some of the voters involved in the legal dispute. They embraced and laughed as they cracked jokes, refusing to let the weight of the moment discourage them.

Martha Davis: “I’m just happy to see somebody who looks like me in office.” 

Davis is one of the Black voters who sued Louisiana over its original map. She said that she has always had a keen sense of justice, dating back to when she was a young girl in the country and learned that she and her mother had to wait in the “colored people’s” room at the hospital. She also remembers switching to an integrated school in the 10th grade and realizing that she was just as smart as the white students — they just had more opportunities.

When Davis saw the state’s old map a few years ago, with its one majority-Black district, she became furious.

“I kept thinking to myself, ‘Why would you put New Orleans and Baton Rouge together?’” she told Capital B, noting that these are two cities with largely Black populations. “Of course they did it on purpose [to dilute Black voting power]. And that upset me.”

Dorothy Nairne: “Can we get some joy on this plane first?”

Dorothy Nairne, an entrepreneur who also has been involved in voting rights litigation against Louisiana, told Capital B that she has already seen how Assumption Parish, where she lives, has started to benefit from more attentive political leadership.

“There are some slow things happening,” she said. “They’re replacing those little bitty toothpick-like electric poles with strong, fortified ones that can withstand the next hurricane that comes through. And our roads are being fixed out here. So it’s like, ‘OK, maybe we can have change here in Assumption Parish, in rural Louisiana.’ That’s a very positive thing.”

This is the kind of change that needs to continue, Nairne, 59, added, her voice rising with frustration. She doesn’t want to go back to a time when progress felt impossible. She lived in South Africa for nearly 20 years — from 1998 to 2016 — and said that it seemed as if nothing had improved when she returned to Napoleonville, in Assumption Parish, known for its sugar-cane farming.

“If anything, more men were in prison. People were living in the same trailers,” she recalled. “Some people say, ‘Well, I’m just going to wait until I get to heaven.’ But can we get some joy on this plane first? That’s what I’m here for.”

Ambrose Sims: I have “an opportunity to have a voice.”

Ambrose Sims, who lives in West Feliciana Parish and has also challenged the state in court over its voting maps, echoed this fear of returning to the past.

Born and raised in Louisiana, Sims, 73, grew up during the era of segregation. He went to “separate but equal” schools and enrolled at Louisiana State University in 1969, when he said that there were 20,000 students total — but only 35 Black students.

“I’ve had the experience of not having a voice — and now an opportunity to have a voice,” Sims, who helped to establish the West Feliciana Parish NAACP, told Capital B. “That’s what brings me here today.”

Michael McClanahan: “Our future generations deserve better.”

Michael McClanahan, from Baton Rouge, said that the possibility of not having freedoms carry forward into the future is terrifying. It makes him feel as if Louisiana is dead set on returning to a darker age.

“White folks love to see [wide] receivers be Black, but his mom could not be the person representing you,” McClanahan, 60, told Capital B. “The Dred Scott decision said that the Black man has no rights that a white man is bound to respect. It might’ve been overturned, but it’s still in people’s minds.”

As frightening as this moment is, however, he said that he’s determined to push back.

“I travel the state and see that there are still areas that are back in the ’40s and ’50s,” said McClanahan, the president of the NAACP Louisiana State Conference. “And we got to fight that. Our kids, our future generations, deserve better. If I can do my part to make it better, I’m willing.”

In addition to Davis, Nairne, Sims, and McClanahan, the other voters participating in the case include Davante Lewis and Ashley Shelton (top row), and Edgar Cage and Alice Washington (bottom row).

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