Louisiana GOP – Louisiana’s Republican-controlled Senate is expected to vote Friday on a new congressional map designed to help the GOP keep control of the U.S. House after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s 2024 map as an illegal racial gerrymander. The amended p
BATON ROUGE, La. — The fight over who gets to choose Louisiana’s congressional districts is moving fast again, this time toward a vote expected Friday in the state Senate.
Republicans say the new redistricting plan is their answer to a late April U.S. Supreme Court decision that dismantled Louisiana’s prior House map as an illegal racial gerrymander. Thursday, an amended version overwhelmingly passed the state House. Once the final map clears the Legislature, Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign it.
Friday’s Senate action could give Louisiana Republicans a chance to pick up an additional U.S. House seat in November, adding to a broader pattern across the South since the Supreme Court ruling. In the weeks after the decision. multiple Republican-controlled states moved to redraw districts. leaning on what they see as a weakened path under the Voting Rights Act.
So far, Republicans have been winning these redistricting contests. But winning maps does not guarantee winning seats in November. Republicans say they could gain as many as 14 seats from their redistricting efforts. while Democrats argue they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.
Louisiana is starting from a court-ordered map drawn in 2024 to comply with the Voting Rights Act. On that map, Republicans currently hold four of Louisiana’s six congressional seats. A key feature of the 2024 map was the creation of a second district with a majority-Black population. That map was challenged in court. and on April 30 the Supreme Court struck it down. ruling it was an illegal racial gerrymander.
Landry postponed Louisiana’s U.S. House primary, scheduled for May 16, until later this summer. The delay gave Republican lawmakers time to redraw and pass a new map.
The proposed new map would reshape two districts tied to Democratic incumbents. It redraws U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields’ district, clustering it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana. It also adds part of Baton Rouge to a heavily Democratic. majority-Black district based in New Orleans currently represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter.
Democrats say the plan could still be unconstitutional. Their argument is that the map may continue to function as a racial gerrymander by packing Black voters into a single congressional district. At the same time. the plaintiffs who challenged the earlier map — and the Supreme Court’s decision itself — had criticized the Legislature’s prior approach for leaving a majority-Black district in place.
More lawsuits were expected after the new map is finalized.
The Louisiana proposal arrives as other Republican states have already made their own moves since the April 30 ruling. Florida’s Legislature passed new congressional districts just hours after the decision. completing a redrawing that had been in the works for that moment; it could yield Republicans as many as four additional seats in the midterm elections. Tennessee adopted new U.S. House districts a week after the ruling. carving up a majority-Black district based in Memphis in an effort to win an additional seat.
In Alabama. Republicans are attempting to gain another seat by redrawing two districts where Black residents compose a majority or are close to a majority. Democrats hold both seats, and that proposal is mired in a court battle. South Carolina’s Senate, meanwhile, decided against redistricting despite pressure from President Donald Trump.
Louisiana redistricting U.S. House districts Jeff Landry Cleo Fields Troy Carter racial gerrymander Voting Rights Act U.S. Supreme Court Baton Rouge November elections Republican-controlled Senate