A panel of three federal judges struck down Louisiana's new congressional lines on Tuesday, surprisingly throwing a last-minute twist into the 2024 congressional map.

Earlier this year, the Louisiana legislature redrew the state's congressional map to add a second Black-majority district after a court ruled that the old map violated the Voting Rights Act by not giving Black voters enough representation. This turned a solid-red seat, the 6th District, into a solid-blue seat, giving Democrats a near-guaranteed pickup this fall.

But the new 6th District was awkwardly shaped, stretching diagonally across the state from Shreveport to Baton Rouge, giving rise to complaints it was a racial gerrymander — essentially, that it was drawn based on race above all else. These three judges agreed, saying the district violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.

That doesn't necessarily mean Louisiana won't get a second Black-majority, safely Democratic district, though. It's easy to draw such a district that's more compact, going from Baton Rouge up the Mississippi River. It remains to be seen what the state will do next; the judicial panel will meet again on May 6 to discuss next steps.

Time's up, Supreme Court! That's what a panel of three federal judges declared on Thursday, as they decided that South Carolina must use the congressional map it used in 2022 in the 2024 election as well.

The panel had previously struck down South Carolina's 1st District as a racial gerrymander because it did not have enough Black voters, which had turned the one-time swing district into a more safely Republican seat. However, Republicans appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which has been sitting on the case for months. The three-judge panel finally decided that it was too late to make any changes for 2024, given that Monday is the deadline for congressional candidates to file to run. As a result, Democrats will miss out on a chance to flip another district in their favor this year.

On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the state's congressional map. The order was a blow to Democrats, who had argued that the map unfairly advantaged Republicans. It was also unexpected after liberals took control of the court with the election of Janet Protasiewicz in April 2023; Protasiewicz did not participate in the order.

As a result, Wisconsin will use its current congressional map, which has six Republican-leaning seats and two Democratic-leaning seats, in the 2024 election.

This week, New York's Democratic-controlled legislature took up the congressional map proposed by the state's bipartisan redistricting commission … and largely left it unchanged.

On Monday, after the legislature voted down the commission's proposal, many people assumed they would replace it with an aggressive Democratic gerrymander that would help the party in its quest to flip the U.S. House. But that's not what happened. Instead, the legislature passed a map with only minor tweaks from the commission's, which in turn was pretty close to the old congressional map drawn by a court-appointed special master in 2022.

Based on the results of the 2020 presidential election, no district will shift by more than 4 percentage points of margin. The biggest change is in the 22nd District, which now would have voted for Biden by 11 points, making it harder for Republican Rep. Brandon Williams to win reelection. Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi and Pat Ryan also got a little safer in their districts, while the legislature also did a favor for Republican Rep. Nick LaLota, turning his 1st District from a narrow Biden district to a narrow Trump district.

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the new map into law on Wednesday night.

For months, the U.S. House delegation from New York has been waiting to hear whether they’d run in the same districts in 2024 as they did in 2022. Now, they have their answer — or, at least part of it.

On Tuesday, New York’s Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ordered the Independent Redistricting Commission to submit a revised congressional redistricting plan to the state Legislature, based on data from the 2020 Census. But what that map looks like — and which incumbents could find themselves in competitive seats — remains to be seen. The court order requested that the IRC submit a new map to the state legislature “on the earliest possible date,” with a firm deadline of Feb. 28.

Much of the drama in the coming months will center around local politics, with conflicting personalities and interests complicating what should be a relatively mundane process. But New York is home to five Republican freshmen who represent districts that Biden carried — plus former Rep. George Santos’ now-vacant seat in a sixth district that Biden carried. With Democrats in need of five additional House seats to win the majority, the race for the House runs straight through the Empire State.

But there’s little reason to expect the IRC to agree on a map this time around, when it failed to do so just two years ago. That would put map-drawing back into the hands of the state legislature — and, most likely, back into a series of court cases poking holes at the constitutionality of the new lines.

“It’s likely that there will be litigation unless both major political parties agree on a deal,” said Blair Horner, executive director of New York Public Interest Research Group, adding, “It’s hard to imagine why the Republicans would agree to any deal, given that the stakes are so high because control of the House may well run through New York in 2024.”

At least one more House race will be held on the current maps: the special election to replace Santos, scheduled for Feb. 13. In that race, county party leaders select the nominees in lieu of a traditional primary.

The big question now is which New York Republicans end up getting the short end of the stick. As Democrats celebrated the court’s decision, Rep. Mike Lawler, one of the freshman Republicans who represents a district that Biden carried, spoke out against it, characterizing it as a “pathetic” ploy meant to favor Democrats. Another Biden-district freshman Republican, Rep. Marc Molinaro said of the decision, “There’s nothing fair about this.”