Nairne v. Landry

In March 2022, the ACLU, ACLU of Louisiana, NAACP LDF, and Louisiana attorney John Adcock brought a Section 2 challenge to Louisiana’s House and Senate legislative maps on behalf of Black voters across the state. Both plans pack Black voters into a small number of majority-Black districts and crack other Black communities across other districts to prevent them from forming an effective voting bloc. As a result, Black voters in Louisiana cannot participate equally in the political process or elect candidates of their choice outside of a few majority-Black districts.

A federal court heard the full trial on the merits from November 2023 to December 2023. In the seven-day trial, the court heard testimony from Black Louisiana voters who brought the case as well as statistical evidence of vote dilution and evidence of historical and ongoing voting discrimination in the state from the plaintiffs’ experts.

On February 8, 2024, the district court ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor, finding Louisiana’s House and Senate legislative maps violated Section 2 of the VRA across the state, including around Shreveport, Baton Rouge, Natchitoches, and Lake Charles. Plaintiffs satisfied the Gingles preconditions, and every relevant Senate Factor to overwhelmingly satisfy the totality of the circumstances test demonstrating a clear Section 2 violation. Defendants filed a notice of appeal of the decision in late February 2024. Defendants also moved the full Fifth Circuit to rehear the case en banc before a panel considered it, mainly, to reconsider its precedent holding that a private right of action exists to enforce Section 2 of the VRA. In June 2024, the Fifth Circuit denied Defendants' request.

A panel of the Fifth Circuit heard argument in the case in January 2025. A decision is pending.