BATON ROUGE, La. — Republican senators in Louisiana advanced a plan Wednesday to eliminate one of two majority-Black, Democratic-held congressional seats following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state's U.S. House map as an illegal racial gerrymander.
The early morning Senate committee vote came after hours of impassioned testimony from Black residents and Democrats opposed to the move. Republicans opted not to pursue a more aggressive approach, which could have targeted both Democratic seats for elimination.
The Supreme Court's recent ruling weakening federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities has prompted Republicans in several Southern states to try to eliminate House districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats. Tennessee and Alabama already have acted to implement different House maps that could help Republicans win an additional seat. A similar effort fizzled Tuesday in the South Carolina Senate.
The redistricting efforts to undo minority districts are the latest variation in a 10-month-long national redistricting battle that already has involved about one-third of the states. It gained steam when President Donald Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw House districts in an attempt to win more seats in the midterm elections. Democrats in California responded with their own new districts. Numerous Republican states have redistricted since then.
Republicans think they could gain as many as 15 seats so far from new House maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama. Democrats, meanwhile, think they could gain six seats from new maps in California and Utah. The Virginia Supreme Court last week struck down a redistricting effort that could have yielded four more winnable seats for Democrats.
Louisiana map resembles 2022 districts
The Louisiana Senate could vote Thursday on the new House map advanced by a committee tasked with redistricting.
The plan keeps a New Orleans-based, majority-Black district represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter. But it significantly reshapes the 6th District, represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, which currently snakes northwest from Baton Rouge to Shreveport to create a second majority-Black district.
State Sen. Jay Morris, a Republican who sponsored the revised map, said the new districts are very similar to those used in 2022 that resulted in five Republicans and one Democrat winning election.
A federal judge struck down the 2022 map for violating the Voting Rights Act. Then in 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama had to create its own second largely Black congressional district.
In light of the Alabama ruling, the Louisiana Legislature passed a revised map, creating a second majority-Black district that was used in the 2024 elections. That map also was challenged, leading to last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Louisiana's districts had relied too heavily on race. The Supreme Court followed that with a decision also overturning a judicial order mandating that Alabama use a House map with two largely Black congressional districts.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has postponed Louisiana's U.S. House primaries, scheduled for Saturday, to allow time for new districts to be put in place.
Democrats wanted to preserve 2 districts
During committee testimony, many Democrats and Black residents suggested that Louisiana could revise its districts in response to the high court ruling in a way that could preserve two Democratic-leaning seats that give Black voters an opportunity to elect the candidates of their choice. They argued that it was a matter of fairness.
As the hearing stretched into Tuesday night, Josiah Hardy, a high school sophomore, told lawmakers his great-grandfather fought for civil rights and equal representation in Louisiana when Black voters were disenfranchised.
“Why are we still fighting the same fight decades later?” Hardy questioned. “My great-grandfather believed democracy is stronger when more people are included, not excluded. Further generations should not have to keep fighting the same battles for fairness and voting rights that leaders before us have already fought.”
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Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.
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