Republicans in the Louisiana Senate voted early Wednesday to advance a new congressional map that would give the GOP another seat in the House from the state after a recent Supreme Court decision that struck down its previous lines.
The map would give the state five Republicans and one Democrat in its congressional delegation, as opposed to the current 4-2 split. It’s the latest move from state lawmakers redrawing lines across the country to affect the margins of the battle for control of the U.S. House of Representatives this fall.
The remaining Democratic, majority-Black district, largely preserves the New Orleans-area district represented by Democratic Rep. Troy Carter. But it also stretches into Baton Rouge, where Rep. Cleo Fields, the state’s other Democratic congressman, currently represents a district, potentially paving the way for a member-versus-member contest.
Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Legislature rejected a plan aimed at preserving both Democratic seats in the state in a way that the Democrats believed would pass muster at the Supreme Court. But lawmakers also chose not to consider a proposal to eliminate both of those Democratic-held seats.
The map still has to pass a full vote in the state Senate and receive approval from the state House.
The effort comes after a pivotal Supreme Court ruling struck down Louisiana’s congressional district map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and changed how states previously considered race to comply with pieces of the Voting Rights Act.
If the Legislature approves these new maps, this will be the third set of congressional maps in Louisiana since the last census. The Legislature drew maps for the 2022 election that were ruled unconstitutional by a lower court. It passed new maps ahead of the 2024 election, after the court ruled the state needed a second majority-Black district.
But in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, which found that the state illegally relied on racial data to draw Fields’ district, Louisiana delayed its House primaries — even though early voting had already begun — to allow the Legislature to redraw maps once again.
The high court’s ruling opened the door for a handful of states in the South to quickly pass new maps before the midterms that could eliminate a handful of Democratic-held, majority-Black seats in the short term. In the long term, the ruling could have a dramatic effect on congressional maps across the country, likely sparking new efforts to redraw maps for partisan gain ahead of the 2028 congressional elections.
The sudden redistricting debate has sparked serious tensions in Baton Rouge, with deep criticism particularly from Black Democrats arguing their voices were being drowned out for partisan gain. Days after a contentious exchange during a committee hearing on redistricting, a Democratic state senator took a leave of absence from his role on the committee overseeing the redrawing and was replaced by another member.
While the committee had been expected to consider the maps Wednesday, it moved to do so Tuesday evening, with the hearing stretching late into the evening. State Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican, said Tuesday that the schedule changed was due to lawmakers wanting to be able to reserve more overflow rooms for people to attend the hearing and testify, which would have been harder to do during the day on Wednesday with other legislative business on the calendar.
The hearing stretched on into the early hours of Wednesday as lawmakers heard public testimony for and against the redistricting plan.
