Louisiana has no choice but to redraw its map after yesterday's Supreme Court ruling. House Speaker Mike Johnson suggests that all states with similarly "unconstitutional" districts based on racial gerrymanders follow suit – even if it means postponing their midterm elections.
The Washington Post reports this morning that Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry will take that very step. He will act before the start of early primary voting tomorrow to suspend the election and call the legislature into session for redistricting to replace the map rejected by SCOTUS yesterday. That may push off the general election to December:
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) told Republican House candidates Wednesday that he plans to suspend next month’s primary elections so state lawmakers can pass a new congressional map first, according to two people with knowledge of the calls.
The move follows a Supreme Court decision earlier in the day that found Louisiana had unlawfully discriminated by race when it created a second majority-Black congressional district under legal pressure. A new Louisiana map would position Republicans to gain one or two seats in the midterms as they fight to hold their narrow majority in the House.
A spokesperson for Landry declined to comment on his plans for the primary. But the governor, along with Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill (R), said in a statement Thursday that the Supreme Court’s decision no longer requires the state to hold “congressional elections under the current map.”
Is that legal? It appears to be, says UCLA law professor Rich Hasen:
Richard Hasen, a law professor at UCLA and director of the school’s Safeguarding Democracy Project, said Landry’s unusual plan did not appear to conflict with federal voting laws.
“It’s naked partisanship, but under the Supreme Court’s approach to voting now, naked partisanship is more of a defense than an indictment,” Hasen said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who represents a Louisiana district, gave his endorsement for Landry's reported decision. The move would push the primary to November and make it an all-in primary for candidates of all political parties, with any race that fails to get a majority winner proceeding to a runoff in early December between the top two vote-getters. Johnson told reporters this morning that Landry has no choice after the court ruled the current map unconstitutional:
“The governor has no choice but to suspend it,” Johnson said. “The court has ruled our map unconstitutional.” ...
The exact timing of the rescheduled elections is “not my decision,” Johnson added, but said “the way it was typically done” was to hold an all-party “jungle” primary in November, with a runoff in December, and “it looks like it may be that way again.”
“But again, my fingerprints aren’t on it,” Johnson added. “It’s a decision of the state Legislature.”
Johnson then urged all states with similarly gerrymandered districts on the basis of race to suspend primaries and start over with legitimate congressional maps:
News — Speaker Johnson tells me that certain states should redraw maps per SCOTUS opinion *this* year before midterms
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 30, 2026
(Also wouldn’t comment on if House will pass DHS funding bill. Says he will talk to his members first.) pic.twitter.com/7tQEwJGrhM
“All states that have unconstitutional maps should look at that very carefully, and I think they should do it before the midterms,” he said.
That's easier said than done. As Johnson says, Louisiana has no choice after the Supreme Court decision. Its congressional elections are predicated on a map that no longer has legal standing. The legislature has to come back and authorize a new map, even if only to restore the map previous to the one tossed by the court. To hold primaries on the basis of a map already held to be unconstitutional would create a legal nightmare that could result in the state having no initial representation in the next Congress.
As for other states, the argument is less compelling, outside of the political implications. Southern states have racial-gerrymandered districts because that had been the only way for redistricting maps to pass muster under the old interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. And not just southern states either; most states drew districts in that manner rather than run afoul of activist federal judges, but it's more prevalent in the states where the VRA imposed a higher level of scrutiny. Eventually, states will have to redistrict in compliance with yesterday's Louisiana v Callais decision, and all of that will get unwound.
Today may not be that day, though. Yesterday's decision applied only to Louisiana in terms of immediate action required. It will take similar legal challenges in every state to create a legal judgment of unconstitutionality for each map, and plaintiffs will have to prove that racial considerations went into those gerrymanders in a trial. That's probably not going to be difficult, given the extensive public records that go into redistricting fights, but it's still a necessary step before states are forced to act.
Until that happens, though, the existing maps are legal and usable for this cycle and perhaps through 2030, when the natural cycle of redistricting will take place. States can choose to redistrict, which Florida did yesterday, and the SCOTUS decision yesterday gives those states better moral grounding for that choice. Many states may choose to wait to avoid the massive disruption that election delays will create; that's now unavoidable in Louisiana but eminently avoidable everywhere else.
Those states have largely avoided the redistricting fight this cycle already. Don't expect them to take any other path other than the one of least resistance even after the SCOTUS decision yesterday. However, most if not all may choose to redraw their maps for 2028, which may make for a very spicy and unpredictable presidential election cycle.
Editor's Note: The Democrats are doing everything in their power to undermine the integrity of our elections.
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