Louisiana’s congressional map is in the national spotlight this week as the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in a landmark case that could determine the future of the federal Voting Rights Act and whether race can be a factor in drawing political districts. The Louisiana v. Callais case was brought by a group of non-Black Louisiana voters who challenged the state’s 2024 congressional map that includes two Black-majority districts. The Louisiana Illuminator’s Piper Hutchinson notes that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which could be overturned, is meant to ensure that voting laws and procedures don’t discriminate against Black voters.
Press Robinson, the lead Black voter who sued Louisiana over its original, single-Black district map, believes the state should still be subject to its Section 2 requirements. Robinson said he hasn’t observed sufficient progress in the 60 years he’s been involved in politics in the state. “It’s fairly easy to be arguing that things have changed to the point that there’s no need for special dispensation of Black voters,” Robinson said earlier this month in a news media briefing. “Has Louisiana really changed? I don’t see it. I don’t know what they’re talking about when they say that it has.”
Abbie Van Sickle of The New York Times writes that the case initially centered on a narrow question of whether politics or race drove the creation of the current map. But in June, the Court ordered the case to be reargued.
Since then, court watchers have puzzled over the role this Louisiana case might play in the arc of the voting law. Some have drawn analogies to cases that started small and resulted in decisions of enormous consequence, like the court’s 2010 ruling in the Citizens United campaign finance case, which struck down campaign spending limits on corporations. In that case, too, the justices delayed a decision on a narrow case, then set it for another round of oral argument on a broader question.
A Youth Oasis in Baton Rouge
Around 1 in 6 Louisiana youth aged 16-24 are disconnected from both work and school, one of the highest rates of disconnection in the country. A Baton Rouge nonprofit helps these young people navigate challenging times by providing counseling, housing and other critical supports that they might be lacking at home. The Times-Picayune | Baton Rouge Advocate’s Aidan McCahill reports on Youth Oasis:
Tekoah Boatner, executive director of Youth Oasis, said Louisiana’s children and teens continue to face among the worst conditions in the country. … From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, Youth Oasis welcomes any child seeking free counseling, therapy, health checkups or job training through its partnership with Empower 225. The brick building also serves as an after-school hub, where teens can learn to cook, play basketball and receive tutoring. But what sets Youth Oasis apart is its housing model. The organization, originally founded in 1998, rents five multi-bedroom homes across Baton Rouge that shelter 12 teens ages 16 to 18, and also provides apartments for 11 young adults up to age 24.
Cutting aid to the unhoused
The federal SOAR program helps people with severe mental illness and other health problems avoid homelessness by helping them navigate state and federal bureaucracies to access disability benefits and other aid for which they are eligible. The program has proven to be highly effective in helping some of society’s most vulnerable people, and was recently mothballed by the Trump administration. Kathleen Romig and Devin O’Connor of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report:
Before the Administration ended support for it in August, the SOAR Technical Assistance Center provided intensive training on navigating the complex disability application process each year to roughly 3,500 caseworkers at the state and local level and supplied important resources and support to thousands more. Without assistance, SOAR’s target population — unhoused people with serious mental illness — has a very low chance of being approved for benefits because of the obstacles to gathering necessary documentation and maintaining steady contact with the Social Security Administration (SSA).
SNAP cuts will hurt recession response
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps more than 800,000 Louisiana households – and millions more across the country – put food on the table each month. The program also is a critical part of helping states and localities weather economic recessions, as it helps ensure that people can buy groceries after they lose their job or have their hours cut back. A new Brookings report from Lauren Bauer and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach finds that SNAP’s role as an “automatic stabilizer” will be undermined by the program cuts that were included in the federal tax and budget megabill (or OBBA).
We expect that changing the structure of SNAP by ending guaranteed full federal funding of program benefits, as OBBBA does, will almost certainly lead some states to cut SNAP participation substantially and is likely to lead other states to end their participation in the program entirely. This post-OBBBA dynamic will worsen as economic conditions deteriorate: Nearly all states must balance their budgets even in recessions, when their revenues are declining, and will feel pressures to cut SNAP. As a result, instead of expanding during recessions in tandem with the economy’s contraction, SNAP is likely to contract, too, causing the economy to weaken still further.
Number of the Day
$1.40-$1.50 – Increase in total economic activity for every additional $1 in SNAP benefits added during an economic downturn (Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture via Brookings)