Louisiana lawmakers have approved a new congressional district map designed to help Republicans win a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
To achieve this, however, the map eliminates one of the state’s two majority-black districts, both of which are represented by Democrats.
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The approval of the Louisiana legislature came Friday. This follows a U.S. Supreme Court decision in April that ruled Louisiana’s current map was illegally racially segregated because it included two majority-black counties.
That ruling in Louisiana v. Callais weakened the landmark 1965 federal Voting Rights Act, which was designed to prevent discrimination against minorities at the ballot box.
It also intensified a national battle over redistricting that was fueled by President Donald Trump’s efforts to protect Republicans’ narrow majority in the House of Representatives Midterm elections. Louisiana is one of several Southern states currently redrawing their maps to help Republicans.
Louisiana Republicans had thought about it draw a map This gives the party a chance to win all six seats in the state’s U.S. House of Representatives. But that would have required adding more registered Democrats to Republican-controlled districts, which could have potentially led to Republican losses.
Republicans currently hold four of Louisiana’s six congressional seats and are expected to gain a fifth with the newly adopted map.
It was approved by the Louisiana State Senate on Friday by a vote of 28-10.
“Vicious race to the bottom”
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign the new map into law, despite threats of further litigation on Friday.
A half-hour debate on the Senate floor centered on Democrats’ claim that the proposed map was racially rigged to squeeze more Black voters, who tend to be registered Democrats, into a single district.
Democratic Sen. Royce Duplessis pointed out that some other southern states, such as South Carolina, have refused to redraw their maps in the middle of an election year.
He warned that by participating in redistricting, Louisiana was participating in a “vicious, vicious race to the bottom.”
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Jay Morris, repeatedly emphasized that party affiliation, not race, would determine the new district boundaries.
“I intentionally put more Democrats in District 2 to improve the performance of the remaining districts for Republicans,” Morris once said.
Morris said he has instructed map demographers not to include data on race or to include those statistics in information shared with lawmakers before the vote.
Democratic Sen. Sam Jenkins told Morris, “I think it’s a racially gerrymandered district that’s going to get us in a lot of trouble here.”
“Agree to disagree,” Morris told Jenkins.
More litigation expected in Louisiana
Louisiana is currently using a map ordered by a lower court in 2024 to comply with the Voting Rights Act. It includes a second district with a majority black population.
However, that map was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court responded on April 30 by classifying it as illegal racial discrimination.
Landry postponed the state’s U.S. House of Representatives primary election scheduled for May 16 to allow for the implementation of the new congressional map.
He later signed a bill opening the U.S. primary, pushing back the date to Nov. 3 to give Republican lawmakers time to draw and pass a new map. All candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will be on the ballot for voters in their district.
The proposed map redraws a district currently represented by Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields and groups it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and south Louisiana.
It also adds part of Baton Rouge to a heavily Democratic, majority-black district based in New Orleans, represented by Democratic Rep. Troy Carter.
More lawsuits are expected over the new map.
Democrats say the proposed map could represent a legal challenge to racist gerrymandering, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Louisiana suggested Friday it could sue, calling the map “racist gerrymandering hidden behind the thin veneer of partisanship.”
“This fight is just beginning,” the ACLU branch added.
Meanwhile, the victorious plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court decision criticized the Legislature’s strategy of maintaining a majority-black district.
Nationwide battle over district boundaries
In the weeks following the Supreme Court’s decision, other Republican-controlled Southern states have used weakened federal voting rights law to redraw their own congressional districts.
So far, Republicans are winning the statewide redistricting race and are passing more partisan maps to win House seats than Democrats.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean they will win in the narrowly divided US House of Representatives in November.
Republicans expect they could gain up to 15 seats through their redistricting efforts so far, while Democrats expect they could gain six seats through redistricting in California and Utah.
Meanwhile, a court decision in Wisconsin on Friday could give Democrats a new opportunity to pick up seats in 2028.
The liberal-dominated Wisconsin Supreme Court announced it will hear an appeal of a case brought by a bipartisan coalition of business leaders seeking to redraw the state’s Republican-friendly congressional districts. Republicans hold six of the state’s eight House seats, but only two are considered competitive.
A three-judge panel dismissed the case in April. Those who filed the lawsuit did not want to make a decision in time for the 2026 election. Instead, they asked the state Supreme Court to send the case back to the lower court for a hearing on their claims, which probably wouldn’t take place until 2027.
