As promised, civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the congressional redistricting map approved by the state Legislature but vetoed by Gov. John Bel Edwards.
The lawsuit filed March 15 in the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) and other groups alleges that the state Legislature is unlikely to pass a congressional redistricting map acceptable to the plaintiffs.
“With little prospect for the timely adoption of a lawful redistricting plan, this court has authority to remedy this manifest violation of the one-person-one-vote requirement of Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution,” the lawsuit states.
The Legislature’s plan violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by diluting the voting strength of Black voters in the state, according to LDF. Blacks make up almost one-third of Louisiana’s voting-age population, and yet only one of the state’s six congressional districts has a majority of Black residents, the LDF reported. In addition, no Black candidate has won in any of the white-majority districts since the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, according to the LDF.
Civil rights groups’ legal challenge to the redistricting maps extends beyond just the congressional boundaries, according to LDF spokeswoman Ella Wiley.
“There are two separate complaints actually,” Wiley told the Louisiana Record in an email, “one challenging the state legislative maps and one challenging the congressional map. We’re serving as counsel on both, but LDF is lead counsel in the complaint challenging the congressional map.”
The challenge to the state House and Senate redistricting maps, which Edwards said he would allow to become law without his signature, was filed in federal court in the Middle District of Louisiana. The state’s Black population is sufficient to have majorities in six to nine more House districts and three more Senate districts, the complaint says.
“Black voters in Louisiana are politically cohesive, while the white majority in Louisiana routinely votes as a bloc to defeat Black voters’ candidates of choice,” the lawsuit says.
The defendant in both lawsuits is the state’s secretary of state, Kyle Ardoin. The Secretary of State’s Office declined to comment on the pending litigation.