Louisiana senate passes bill to eliminate one of two majority-Black congressional districts

On Thursday. the Louisiana state senate voted 27-10 to pass a new congressional map that would eliminate one of the state’s two majority-Black House districts. The resulting map could give Louisiana Republicans a 5-1 congressional majority.

The supreme court’s recent decision in Louisiana v Callais. a case that centered on the state’s congressional maps, severely weakened the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The fallout from the decision was swift. with several other southern states calling special sessions to pass redistricting maps that would limit Black voting power.

Louisiana’s governor. Jeff Landry, a Republican, had immediately suspended the state’s ongoing house primary elections, despite 45,000 absentee ballots that were already cast – something that did not happen during the civil war, either world war or the Covid pandemic.

The map is nearly identical to one the state used in 2022 that resulted in a 5-1 Republican majority. It would drastically reshape district 6, which is currently represented by Cleo Fields, a Democrat, and make it more Republican. Under the unconstitutional existing map, the majority-Black district 6 runs almost 250 miles, from Baton Rouge. Lafayette in the south through Alexandria and to Shreveport in the north. The new map would be centered around predominantly white areas in the Baton Rouge suburbs and south Louisiana.

Under the map, district 2, currently represented by Troy Carter, a Democrat, would retain its Black majority. District 2 would cover New Orleans to part of Baton Rouge and likely lean Democratic.

Senate Bill 121 will now head to the state house. If it passes there, lawmakers must approve a new map by 1 June. On Wednesday. the state’s legislature gave final approval to a bill that would move the election to an open primary on 3 November, during which all US House candidates, regardless of party affiliation, would be on the ballot for voters in their district.

During a lengthy floor debate on Thursday. the Republican state senator Jay Morris, who sponsored the bill, defended the new districts.

But the state senator Sidney Barthelemy II, a Democrat, pushed back. “I would argue that if 80% of the Republican party is white, that [race] is a predominant factor – this amendment,. this bill in general, does use race as a predominant factor,” he said. “If the numbers bear out that the party is predominantly white,. you’re redistricting an area based on the party, then the two collide, and now you are redistricting based on race.”

Though Democratic lawmakers. voters have opposed the new maps for the duration of the rushed process, legislatively there is nothing they can do to stop Republicans, who hold supermajorities in both the state house and senate.

“You can’t bring a map like this, that’s gonna reduce representation,. think we’re just supposed to take it,” Royce Duplessis, a Democratic state senator, said. “You think I’m supposed to be cool about? You think I’m supposed to be calm about it? I don’t think so.”