Supreme Court to hear arguments on use of race in redistricting

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in a redistricting case that could curtail a civil rights-era law used to ensure majority-minority congressional districts, something voting rights advocates warn would diminish minority representation in Congress.

The clash over Louisiana’s congressional map focuses on how lawmakers can consider race when drawing new districts, at a time ahead of the midterm elections when Texas and other states have redrawn their maps and officials in other states are publicly considering doing so as well.

In the first map Louisiana drew in response to the 2020 census, Black voters made up about one-third of the state’s voting population but were a majority in only one of the state’s six congressional districts, the New Orleans-based seat of Democr