New Map Details
Louisiana lawmakers approved a new congressional map Friday, eliminating one of the state's two majority-Black districts. The state Senate approved the map in a 28-10 vote. The redistricting could allow Republicans to flip one of Louisiana's Democratic-held U.S. House seats in the midterms.
Voting Rights Act Impact
The new map comes after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state's existing map as an illegal racial gerrymander. The ruling weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The current map was created as a result of a 2022 lawsuit that argued Louisiana lawmakers illegally diluted Black voting power by failing to draw a second majority-Black district in a state where Black voters account for roughly one third of the population.
Republican Strategy
Republican state Senator Jay Morris said he "purposely put more Democrats into District 2 to make the remaining districts better performing for Republicans." Morris said he instructed map demographers to avoid including data on race.
Democratic Objections
Democratic state Senator Royce Duplessis said that Louisiana is participating in a "vicious, vicious race to the bottom" by redrawing the map. State Senator Sam Jenkins told Morris, "I think it's a racially gerrymandered district that's going to get us into a lot of trouble here." The ACLU of Louisiana said Friday it could sue, calling the map a "racial gerrymander hiding behind the thin veneer of partisanship," and added, "This fight is just beginning."
District Changes
The new map dismantles a majority-Black district that previously stretched from Baton Rouge to Shreveport. The proposed map redraws Representative Cleo Fields' district, clustering it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area. It also adds part of Baton Rouge to the majority-Black district based in New Orleans, represented by Representative Troy Carter. The rescheduled primaries are set for November 3.
National Redistricting
Louisiana is one of several Southern states redrawing maps to help Republicans gain House seats. Governor Jeff Landry is expected to sign the new map into law, even as threats of more litigation emerged.
The sources also report that the new map splits Baton Rouge's Black population between two districts and absorbs Shreveport into the rest of northwest Louisiana.