A dozen plaintiffs described as “non-African Americans” have filed a federal lawsuit against Louisiana’s secretary of state, alleging that a new congressional map signed into law last month by Gov. Jeff Landry was a product of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.
The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit against Secretary of State Nancy Landry on Jan. 31 in the Western District of Louisiana. The new map was proposed in Senate Bill 8, authored by Sen. Glen Womack (R-Madisonville), which was approved by both houses of the state Legislature and sent on to Landry’s desk in only eight days, according to the complaint.
Litigation over the state’s congressional map has been going on for years after voting rights groups objected to a previous map that provided only one majority-minority district out of six in total. Opponents of the former map eventually received favorable decisions from federal courts, arguing that the old map violated the Voting Rights Act and diminished the voting power of Black voters, who make up about one-third of the electorate in Louisiana.
“From start to finish, the state’s purpose was clear: segregate voters based entirely on their races and create two majority-African American voting districts and four majority-non-African American districts, without regard for any traditional redistricting criteria,” the complaint says
The lawsuit goes on to argue that SB 8’s sponsors and several other state lawmakers intended to maximize the voting power of Black Louisianans by putting them in congressional districts that divide the communities they live in. Black voters have been placed in two districts that are hundreds of miles long and at some points dwindle to less than a mile in width, according to the complaint
In turn, lawmakers failed to consider traditional demographic criteria such as the compactness of districts and the need to preserve “communities of interest,” the plaintiffs argue.
“... The state has violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment by enacting racially gerrymandered districts,” the lawsuit states. “And … the state has violated the 14th and 15th amendments by intentionally discriminating against voters and abridging their votes based on racial classifications across the state of Louisiana.”
Jared Evans, senior policy counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said he expected the new map to be in place for this fall’s election.
““What’s important to know is that the map that Gov. Landry signed last month is the law of land until a court says otherwise," Evans told the Louisiana Record, adding that he expects the new map would withstand judicial scrutiny.
The Legal Defense Fund is one of the organizations that represented plaintiffs who fought to redraw the old map that the Louisiana Legislature passed after the 2020 census data was released.
“The author of the map himself, Sen. Womack, said multiple times throughout the process that the motivations behind that map were political,” Evans said, noting that political gerrymanders are permissible. “That map reflects the priorities of the Legislature, and their priorities are politics.”
During a special session held last month, Republican lawmakers, who hold majorities in both houses of the Legislature, indicated that the new map would satisfy recent federal court decisions while making only minor changes to the congressional districts represented by Mike Johnson, who currently serves as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Rep. Julia Letlow.
Johnson had argued on X, formerly Twitter, that lawmakers should have pursued another redistricting option.
“There are multiple other map options that are legally compliant and do not require the unnecessary surrender of a Republican seat in Congress,” he said.