BATON ROUGE, La. — According to the American Civil Liberties Union, individual voters and various voting rights organizations filed an emergency motion today aimed at preventing the suspension of the state’s congressional primary election, as voting has already begun statewide.
As the ACLU highlights, the lawsuit was brought by the League of Women Voters of Louisiana, the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP, the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, and three voters, with representation from the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Louisiana, and the Legal Defense Fund.
This suspension was issued by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Secretary of State Nancy Landry and comes after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.
As the ACLU states, Louisiana v. Callais arose on Jan. 31, 2024, after a group of white Louisianans challenged Louisiana’s January 2023 congressional maps from Robinson v. Ardoin as racial gerrymandering.
The congressional maps enacted in January 2023 contained “two districts with majorities of Black voting-age population.”
The plaintiffs attempted to defend the congressional map, represented by the ACLU, ACLU of Louisiana, Legal Defense Fund, and Paul Weiss.
After time, a trial on the merits was held and overturned the congressional maps that contained two districts with majority-Black populations.
According to the ACLU, the court stated that “the case’s ‘non-African American voters’ successfully proved that legislators improperly prioritized race when enacting the map.”
Further, the plaintiffs sought a pause from the U.S. Supreme Court on the lower court’s decision, in order to ensure that the Black-majority districts would remain in the 2024 elections.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted an emergency stay in Robinson v. Callais, which temporarily paused the lower court’s ruling that had struck down Louisiana’s congressional map.
This continued until the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in March 2025 and ordered the case to be reargued.
Recently, on April 30, 2026, the Supreme Court invalidated the map, a decision that “opens the door for states to enact discriminatory maps with impunity.”
The decision enables the “elimination of districts across the country that have provided fair representation” and “struck down Louisiana’s congressional map that allowed Black voters the opportunity to freely elect candidates of their choice.”
The emergency motion by individual voters and various voting rights organizations argues that “the governor’s executive order is beyond the scope of the governor’s authority under Louisiana law.”
In addition, it “improperly usurps the U.S. Supreme Court’s authority to decide how its ruling should apply in this year’s midterm election.”
The executive order by the governor also “sows chaos,” further complicating the election and putting the votes of those who have already submitted absentee ballots at risk.
In a joint statement, plaintiffs and counsel stated that emergency powers “are not a blank check to rewrite election rules after voting has begun, nor do they authorize the governor to cancel votes that have already been cast to suit his political purposes.”
Moreover, they condemned Louisiana’s governor’s order and emphasized that “Governor Landry and Secretary Landry must serve the people and obey the law.”
Their joint statement aimed to point to the importance of blocking Gov. Landry’s and Secretary Landry’s efforts to “alter election procedures or enact discriminatory maps.”
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