Deal that ensured Black representation on Louisiana’s highest court upheld by federal appeals panel

By KEVIN McGILL
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld a deal that ensured Black representation on Louisiana’s highest court. Wednesday’s 2-1 ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a lower court ruling and keeps in place a 1992 federal court agreement that led to a Black justice being elected to Louisiana’s once all-white Supreme Court. State Attorney General and governor-elect Jeff Landry and his staff had argued that the 1992 agreement is no longer needed. Attorneys for the original plaintiffs in the voting rights case and the U.S. Justice Department said the state failed to show it wouldn’t revert to old patterns that denied Black voters representation on the state’s highest court.