On June 12, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated an administrative stay it had issued on June 9 of a federal district court’s ruling that struck down Louisiana’s congressional district boundaries. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals also denied motions to stay the district court’s decision pending appeal. As a result, the congressional districts that the legislature adopted in March are overturned.
In its ruling, the court wrote, “Although we must acknowledge that this appeal’s exigency has left us little time to review the record, we conclude that, though the plaintiffs’ arguments and the district court’s analysis are not without weaknesses, the defendants have not met their burden of making a ‘strong showing’ of likely success on the merits.”
The Fifth Circuit’s ruling directed “the Clerk to issue an expedited briefing schedule and to calendar this matter for argument before the next available randomly selected merits panel that is already scheduled to hear arguments during the week of July 4, 2022…it is feasible that the merits panel, conducting a less-rushed examination of the record in the light of differently framed arguments, may well side with the defendants.”
