A federal appeals court panel declined Louisiana’s invitation to gut a key provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that has required the state to draw additional majority-minority districts, ruling Thursday that the argument is foreclosed by binding precedent.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision upholds a judge’s ruling that blocked Louisiana’s state legislative maps by finding they “packed” and “cracked” Black communities in violation of Section 2, the VRA’s central remaining provision.

The state urged the 5th Circuit, regarded as the nation’s most conservative federal appeals court, to use the case to rule Section 2........

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