The Louisiana State Legislature on Friday approved a new congressional map that heavily favors Republicans in six out of the state’s seven U.S. House districts, and eliminates one of only two majority-Black districts in the state. The bill now awaits the signature of Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who is widely expected to sign it.
The move by state lawmakers in Baton Rouge is the latest in a flurry of Republican redistricting efforts across the South following the April Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais that largely eliminated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In the 6-3 decision, the high court’s majority ruled that a previous Louisiana map, which was drawn in 2024 to add a second majority-Black congressional district, was an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”
Shortly after the high court announced the decision, Landry declared a state of emergency and delayed the state’s House primaries until Nov. 3, leading to widespread confusion over whether the votes that had already been cast would count.
Trending
Louisiana lawmakers have spent the weeks since the decision looking at various proposals for a new congressional map that would draw the lines to maximize Republicans’ advantage in the state. The new map is similar to the 2022 Louisiana congressional map, eliminating Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields’ district but maintaining Democratic Rep. Troy Carter’s.
Speaking with NOTUS earlier this month, Fields said the issue is “not whether or not I serve another day in Congress. The issue is whether or not a person like me will have the opportunity to serve in Congress.”
In their House floor speeches on Thursday, the state’s Democratic lawmakers decried the new map, saying the new lines would significantly deny Black Louisianans political representation.
“‘We gave you all two districts already.’ That is what a colleague of mine had the gall to tell me to my face. As if fair representation for Louisiana’s Black voters was a gift or a treat to be given or withheld at the whim of an administration,” state Rep. Candance Newell said on the House floor Thursday.
“The question today,” Newell said to her colleagues, “is why we are going backwards?”
U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican, told NOTUS earlier this month that he understood the redistricting process could be difficult, but that he would “support the final product that comes out of my state legislature,” and hoped that “they can maintain cultures and communities as much as possible within districts and not divide cities and parishes.”
But following passage in the state House on Thursday, Higgins posted on X blasting the map.
“This map is the worst I’ve seen yet, and I’ve seen many,” Higgins wrote. “This Frankenstein looking thing was NO DOUBT drawn up by a very small handful of guys in a secret room. NOBODY should support this insanely bad map.”
If Landry signs the bills as expected, Louisiana will join Tennessee in successfully ushering through a map that is even more friendly to Republicans following the Supreme Court’s Callais decision. The court is still weighing a challenge to Alabama’s redistricted map.
Author
