Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

Ketanji Brown Jackson Gets Snippy With Lawyer During Hearing On Race-Based Districts

Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson snapped at Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguinaga on Wednesday over his opposition to race-based districts.

The court heard oral arguments in the case, Louisiana v. Callais, which challenges Louisiana’s two majority-black districts in its 2024 congressional map. Jackson interjected and defended the race-based districts.

“I don’t understand why your answer to Justice Kagan’s question about is this a compelling interest is ‘no.’ The answer is obviously yes that you have an interest in remedying the effects of racial discrimination that we identify using this tool. Whether you go too far in your remedy is another issue, right?”

“Your honor, I think step zero in all of these cases. It was obviously step zero in the Robinson litigation is the plaintiffs came in and said, ‘we want another majority black district,'” Aguinaga said.

“I thought they came in and said, ‘we’re not receiving equal electoral opportunity because our votes are being diluted,” Jackson interrupted.

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Aguinaga argued that the plaintiffs indeed asked for a race-based district, prompting Jackson to interrupt him and aggressively dispute his argument. Jackson argued that the majority-black districts are a “remedy” for black voters not having “equal electoral opportunity.”

“That’s the same way as saying we want another majority-black district,” Aguinaga said.

“No it’s not!” Jackson interrupted. “Just trust me on this! The second district is a remedy that one could offer for a problem that we’ve identified and the whole Robinson litigation was about identifying the problem. Is this really happening? In many, many Section 2 cases the court says ‘you’re wrong. You’re fine. There is not an electoral opportunity being denied to you, go away.’ In this case, the court said, ‘I see, I’m looking at the factors, I appreciate what you’re saying. You’ve proven that we have this problem.’ And so the next question is how do we go about remedying it?”

Litigation began in 2022 after a group of black voters objected that there was only one majority-black district. A federal court ordered that the map be redrawn in June 2022, leading the Legislature to make District 6 a majority-black district.

A group of “non-African American” voters sued the state over the 2024 map, claiming it was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. A three-judge panel agreed, finding the map unlawfully made race the “predominant factor” in its creation.

Plaintiffs challenging the congressional map argued that the creation of majority-black districts is a violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits election practices that result in “denial or abridgement” of citizens to vote based on race.