WASHINGTON, D.C. (La. Illuminator) - Louisiana’s existing six congressional districts will be used for the 2026 midterm election after the U.S. Supreme Court did not rule in a case challenging their boundaries by the end of 2025. 

State lawmakers convened for a special session in October to push back election deadlines one month, with Republicans hoping justices would issue a ruling before the year. Had they made a decision on that timeline, the legislature was expected to hold another special session to redraw the districts, possibly eliminating one or both of Louisiana’s majority-Black seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Instead, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a ruling during its usual late-spring release period. 

State Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, R-Port Allen, who co-sponsored legislation to change the 2026 election calendar to allow for a new round of redistricting, said in an interview Friday there were no plans to hold another special session or deviate from the existing map. 

Lawmakers can’t create new maps after the Supreme Court’s ruling in the spring because Louisiana is switching to a closed party primary system this year. The switch moved up the qualifying period for candidates from July to February, which created a limited window for redistricting if the decision was issued in late 2025.

The case in question, Louisiana v. Callais, challenges the legality of a second majority-Black U.S. House district Republicans state lawmakers drew in 2024 in response to a federal court finding a 2022 version of the state’s congressional maps was unconstitutional. Louisiana has six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, but just one favored a Black candidate before the redistricting process in a state where nearly a third of the population is Black.

The case has since been shaped into a test of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark federal law that prohibits racial discrimination in elections. Section 2 prohibits voting laws or procedures that purposefully discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group. State Attorney General Liz Murrill, who originally defended the 2024 version of the map, now argues race-conscious redistricting under Section 2 is no longer necessary to ensure fair racial representation and now violates the 14th and 15th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The Callais case is also notable because justices were originally supposed to rule on the case in spring 2025. But in a rare move, they punted their decision to their next term and called for a second round of oral arguments that were held in October.  The fact that the case had been argued twice gave GOP lawmakers hope a ruling would come earlier than usual. 

Critics of the special session argued Republican legislative leaders would not have authorized the expense of a special session, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in per diem and extra staff time, without the assurance a ruling was coming. 

Kleinpeter and Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, denied this during the session. 

Beaullieu testified during a committee hearing there was no official forecast for when the decision would be issued. He also acknowledged to a reporter the election calendar changes he backed would become pointless if the Supreme Court doesn’t rule in time. 

Qualifying for closed party primaries in the congressional races, scheduled for May 16, will take place Feb. 11-13. Any party runoffs that are needed will be held June 27, and the general election is set for Nov. 3.