BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana lawmakers passed a new congressional map Friday designed to pick up a Republican seat while leaving the state with just one of its two majority-Black House districts represented by Democrats.
Approval of the new House map came a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s current map as an illegal racial gerrymander, weakening the landmark 1965 federal Voting Rights Act. That decision intensified a national
redistricting battle fueled by President Donald Trump’s efforts to protect the Republicans’ slim House majority in the midterm elections.
Louisiana Republicans had considered drawing a map giving the party a shot at winning all six of the state’s U.S. House seats. But that would have required adding more Black voters to Republican-held districts, potentially backfiring with losses. Some Republicans said a 5-1 map better protects U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson from facing a difficult reelection.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign the new map into law.
In the weeks following the Supreme Court’s decision, several other Republican-controlled Southern states have seized upon a weakened federal Voting Rights Act to try to redraw their own congressional districts. It’s the latest flare-up in a heated national redistricting battle heading into the November elections, spurred along by President Donald Trump.
So far, Republicans are winning the redistricting contest. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they will win a narrowly divided U.S. House in November. So far, Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from their redistricting efforts, while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.
In Louisiana, Republicans currently hold four of six congressional seats on a court-ordered map drawn in 2024 to comply with the Voting Rights Act by including a second district with a majority-Black population.
That map, however, was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court responded on April 30 by striking it down as an illegal racial gerrymander.
Landry postponed the state’s U.S. House primary, scheduled for May 16, until later this summer to allow time for Republican lawmakers to draw and pass a new map.
The proposed map redraws Democratic 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.
More lawsuits were expected over the new map.
Democrats say the proposed map could still constitute a racial gerrymander because it packs Black voters into a single congressional district. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision criticized the Legislature's map for leaving a majority-Black district in place.
Several other Southern states also have acted on redistricting since the Supreme Court's decision.
Florida’s Legislature passed new congressional districts just hours after the ruling, completing a redrawing that was in the works in anticipation of the decision. 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 a Republican attempt to win an additional seat.
In Alabama, Republicans are attempting to pick up another seat by redrawing two districts where Black residents compose a majority or close to it. Democrats hold both seats, and the proposal is mired in a court battle.
South Carolina’s Senate, meanwhile, decided against redistricting, despite pressure from Trump.
