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.

On Monday, Louisiana's Republican-controlled legislature convened a special session that will primarily focus on redrawing the state's congressional map. The legislature's gathering came in response to a federal ruling that the current lines violate the Voting Rights Act, which ordered the state to draw a second majority-Black seat among the state's six districts. At present, Louisiana has just one majority-Black seat, the 2nd District, which runs from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Due to racially-polarized voting, any map with a second majority-Black district is guaranteed to provide Democrats with a good chance of capturing a second Louisiana seat, a result that would cut the GOP's advantage in the Pelican State from 5-1 to 4-2.

Legislators have proposed multiple maps, but each takes a different approach to drawing a second majority-Black seat. Two Republican-drawn maps exemplify this. In the state House of Representatives, one plan would keep both seats in central and southern Louisiana, with a New Orleans-based district that President Biden would've carried by 33 percentage points in 2020 and a Biden +14 seat around Baton Rouge. Alternatively, a state Senate proposal supported by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry would create a Biden +19 "slash" district that stretches from Baton Rouge to Shreveport in the northwestern part of the state, with a Biden +36 New Orleans-based seat in the southeast.

How the legislature draws a second seat will help determine the fates of Republican Reps. Garrett Graves and Julia Letlow. Some legislators have prioritized preserving Letlow's position as the state's lone woman in Congress, and both of the Republican proposals above largely keep her seat intact. For his part, Graves supported one of Landry's GOP opponents in the 2023 gubernatorial race, which may cost him politically as both GOP proposals would reshape Graves's 6th District into a majority-Black seat. Conversely, Democratic map proposals in the legislature would convert Letlow's 5th District into a majority-Black seat that largely runs north from Baton Rouge along the Mississippi River.

Some Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who represents Louisiana's 4th District, have stated their preference to keep fighting the order to redraw the map because of the likelihood that a new map will cost the GOP a seat in the closely-divided U.S. House. But early indications out of the legislature suggest Louisiana will produce new lines with a second majority-Black seat.