Louisiana's Republican-controlled legislature has approved a new congressional map that eliminates one of the state's two majority-Black districts, becoming the second Southern state to redraw such a district following a major Supreme Court decision that fundamentally altered voting rights protections.
The State Senate voted 28 to 10 Friday to approve the map, one day after the House passed it largely along party lines. Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, is expected to sign the measure into law.
The redrawing comes directly in response to a Supreme Court ruling that had rejected Louisiana's previous congressional map as an illegal racial gerrymander. The new district configuration reduces the concentration of Black voters in the redrawn area while creating what Republicans view as a structural electoral advantage ahead of this fall's midterm elections.
The court's decision last month weakened the Voting Rights Act, a foundational 1965 civil rights law designed to protect minority voters from discriminatory redistricting. The ruling raised the legal bar required to bring discrimination claims under the law, effectively opening the door for Republican legislatures across the South to reconsider majority-Black districts held by Democrats that had previously been insulated from challenge.
Rep. Cleo Fields, the Black Democrat whose district was eliminated under the new map, has not announced definitively whether he will seek election in one of the state's remaining districts. The new configuration he would face leans heavily Republican.
The primary elections for Louisiana's six U.S. House seats have been rescheduled for Nov. 3, roughly six months later than the state's other primary contests, following weeks of negotiations and delays as lawmakers settled on the final redistricting plan.
The map represents a dramatic reversal of decades of federal oversight under the Voting Rights Act. States like Louisiana previously had to prove that redistricting changes would not harm minority voters, a protection that the Supreme Court's recent decision has substantially eroded. The ruling has now prompted Republican-controlled legislatures from multiple Southern states to actively debate dismantling majority-Black districts in Democratic-held seats.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "Louisiana's move signals that the Supreme Court's voting rights decision just handed Republicans a roadmap for reshaping the South's electoral landscape, and the scramble is only beginning."
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