Gov. Jeff Landry on Monday signed into law a new congressional redistricting map that creates two majority-minority districts in the state, ending a years-long legal battle by plaintiffs who said the previous map violated the federal Voting Rights Act.
The state Legislature’s approval of the new map was its final chance to do so prior to the start of a planned federal trial in the Middle District of Louisiana – a legal battle being overseen by Judge Shelly Dick. The map produced by the Legislature did not contain the district borders favored by the plaintiffs in the case – the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP and several individual voters – but ultimately the plaintiffs saw the Legislature’s map as a major victory for voting rights.
Jared Evans, senior policy counsel for the Legal Defense Fund, told the Louisiana Record that the plaintiffs are satisfied with the new map.
“Obviously, this is not the map that we wanted,” Evans said. “... But redistricting by its nature is a political process. … I think this is the best map we were able to get.”
He stressed that there were no talks between lawmakers and the plaintiffs in the legal action and that the Legislature came up with its map on its own.
“The case is essentially over,” Evans said, adding that there would be nothing left for Judge Dick to review. “... The lawsuit ended upon the governor’s signature.”
A news release from the Legislature says Senate Bill 8, authored by Sen. Glen Womack (R-Harrisonburg), redraws the District 6 congressional seat, which is now held by Republican Rep. Garret Graves, making it the second majority-Black district in the state.
“Supporters say SB 8 … remedies the legal challenge while making only minor changes to U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s district as well as that of Congresswoman Julia Letlow,” the Legislature’s statement says.
The Congressional Black Caucus in Washington called the passage of the new congressional map a victory for Black voters.
“This decision is the result of a years-long legal fight following a federal court ruling that Louisiana's congressional map drawn with 2020 census data violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by illegally diluting Black voting power,” the caucus said in a statement released this week.
The new congressional map will allow minority communities in Louisiana a hopeful future direction after facing generations of discrimination in political representation, according to Evans.
At the base of legal arguments by the plaintiffs was demographics showing that about one-third of the voting population in Louisiana is Black, and yet only one majority-minority congressional district out of six was provided in the map created using the 2020 census data.
“Black voters in Louisiana have long deserved an equitable voice in our political process,” Louisiana NAACP State Conference President Mike McClanahan said in a prepared statement. “... All along, we had the law on our side, the math on our side, and the principle of fairness on our side. We celebrate this day and welcome this new direction for our State.”
Landry said the settlement of the congressional redistricting debate would allow lawmakers to move on to other legislative priorities, including efforts to deal with violent crime.
“Today, we began the process of necessary structural change to our election system, allowing for a cleaner and simpler final ballot, and we took the pen out of the hand of a non-elected judge and placed it in the hands of the people,” the governor said Monday on Z, formerly Twitter..