Louisiana attorney general challenges state’s Voting Rights Act case

SPECIAL: Louisiana’s attorney general is siding with people suing him, in an unusual move that comes as part of a lawsuit he hopes will reshape the Voting Rights Act, a decades-old law designed to prevent discrimination in the voting process.

Liz Murrill, who was Louisiana’s attorney general before becoming attorney general last year, said in an interview with Fox News Digital on Tuesday that she expected the lawsuit and was prepared to agree with the plaintiffs.

Murrill, an elected Republican, endorsed a congressional map that appeared to favor Democrats, but in a perceived reversal, he welcomed a lawsuit challenging the map, saying it was the product of a race-conscious “chopping and packing” in which minority voters were taken from several districts and combined into a single district.

“We said from the beginning that if the second part [of the Voting Rights Act] “If it requires us to do that, it conflicts with the equal protection clause, and the second part has to yield, because the law has to comply with the Constitution,” Murrill said, referring to the section of the Voting Rights Act that he hopes the high court will strike down.

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Murrill denies ‘bait-switch’ claims

The case has a long, complicated history.

One-third of voters in Louisiana are black, but the state legislature kept a map that favored Republicans after the 2020 census. The new map was tilted 5-1 in favor of Republicans and included one black-majority district instead of two.

Black voters and civil rights groups sued, and through a series of court battles it was revealed that Louisiana had violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the votes of black voters.

Rather than have the court tasked with creating a new map, Murrill said the alternative is that his state could preserve its sovereignty by reluctantly drawing its own 4-2 map consistent with existing Voting Rights Act precedents and court rulings, even though he believes the map violates the Constitution.

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Voting rights activists protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court as the court prepares to hear arguments in a case challenging Louisiana’s congressional map on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in Washington. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Murrill argued that he was not engaging in a “bait-switch” and that creating a second district with a black majority was problematic from the beginning.

“We said from the beginning that we didn’t think we could do it, but we’re going to do it because the courts told us we had to do it, and then we got another challenge that said non-African American voters were violating the equal protection clause,” Murrill said. “We could have predicted, we predicted this would happen.”

‘Too much stereotyping’

The Supreme Court said it was examining whether Louisiana’s map with two black-majority districts was unconstitutional. Murrill agrees with the people suing him and claims he does.

“The only way to create a second majority-minority district would be to separate black voters from the five major cities in Louisiana from north to south and pack them into a black district,” he told Fox News Digital. “This is unconstitutional.”

Black voters and civil rights groups defending two majority-black districts have now re-engaged in a legal battle, arguing to the Supreme Court that creating such a map provides black voters with an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. They argue this is a requirement of the Voting Rights Act, which says the votes of minority groups cannot be diluted.

Murrill said the claim “contains too many stereotypes about black voters.”

“It’s not fair to put these people into big categories because of the color of their skin. It’s disturbing,” Murrill said. “That’s what happens in redistricting, though, and it’s driven by this kind of test of whether the dilution of their votes results in them not being able to elect the candidate of their choice.”

What’s next for Louisiana?

The Supreme Court appears ready to rein in race-conscious redistricting, based on oral arguments on Wednesday, but to what extent remains an open question.

Louisiana AG Liz Murrill speaks to the media during a press conference on January 1, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill)

The high court could issue its decision in early January or late June; That means it’s possible Louisiana could adjust its maps before the next midterms to include one black-majority district instead of two.

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But Murrill said it’s difficult to plan for the 2026 election because the timing and content of the high court’s decision are unknown.

“At the end of the day, all we can do right now is try to push back the qualifying dates to give the court time to decide and to give our legislature time to know what the rules are,” he said.