The future boundaries of Louisiana state legislative districts remain uncertain in the wake of a federal judge’s decision that the districts violate the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 because they diminish the voting power of Black residents.
Judge Shelly Dick of the Middle District of Louisiana handed down the decision in February. The opinion led the Prison Policy Institute late last month to predict that the way incarcerated people in Louisiana are counted in the redistricting process will have to change if the ruling is upheld.
“Prison gerrymandering is a problem created because the Census Bureau counts incarcerated people as residents of the wrong place – a prison cell – rather than their actual homes,” the institute said in a news release.
The use of the bureau’s data in state maps gives residents living close to prisons more political clout than voters living far away from such institutions, according to the institute.
Dick’s opinion indicates that while Black residents make up about one-third of Louisiana’s voting-age population, their voting power is diluted by the boundaries of districts making up the state House of Representatives and the state Senate. Specifically, only 11 of the 39 Senate districts (28.2%) have Black majorities, while in the lower house, the proportion is 29 out of 105 districts, or 27.6%, according to the court ruling.
The opinion also quotes redistricting experts as saying that many more majority-minority districts could have been carved out by state legislators, who redraw the boundaries every 10 years.
“... The court finds that plaintiffs have satisfied their burden of proving that the Louisiana State House and Senate electoral maps enacted by the Louisiana Legislature … violate Section 2 of the VRA,” Dick said in her opinion, adding that the state will have a reasonable time period to make the maps comply with her ruling.
Jared Evans, senior policy counsel for the Legal Defense Fund, one of the groups representing plaintiffs in the case, said the plaintiffs and their attorneys are committed to pushing Louisiana to hold new elections under new maps as soon as legally possible.
“We are asking the court to hold a special election under new maps that add additional majority-Black seats to the House and Senate this fall to coincide with the presidential election,” Evans told the Louisiana Record in an email. “The state has appealed the court’s ruling to the Fifth Circuit (Court of Appeals), so that will of course delay relief for our clients.”
Over the past decade, Louisiana communities of color have increased in population, but the state Legislature has failed to draw up legislative districts that have allowed more Black voters to elect representatives of their choosing, according to the ACLU of Louisiana, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs.
“Representation at the state level has an enormous impact on the daily lives of all Louisianans, and fair representation in the Louisiana Legislature is paramount,” Nora Ahmed, the ACLU of Louisiana legal director, said in a prepared statement. “We are extremely pleased that the court has ruled in favor of minority voters who were actively having their voices silenced by their elected officials, and we will continue to fight on their behalf.”
The state legislative districts must comply with the U.S. Constitution, the VRA and other federal and state laws, according to the court ruling. In addition, districts for the two legislative bodies must be nearly equal in population and respect as best as possible the boundaries of parishes, cities, political subdivisions and Louisiana’s natural geography, the court’s opinion states.