BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) 鈥� Louisiana lawmakers passed a new congressional map Friday designed to help Republicans pick up a seat while eliminating one of the state’s two majority-Black House districts, both of which are represented by Democrats.
Approval of the new House map came a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state鈥檚 current map as an illegal racial gerrymander, . That decision intensified fueled by President Donald Trump鈥檚 efforts to protect the Republicans鈥� slim House majority in the midterm elections. Louisiana is one of several Southern states now redrawing their maps to help Republicans.
Louisiana Republicans drawing a map giving the party a shot at winning all six of the state鈥檚 U.S. House seats. But that would have required adding more Black voters to Republican-held districts, potentially backfiring with GOP losses.
The map approved Friday in a 28-10 state Senate vote reflected Republican arguments that a 5-1 map is safer for the GOP and better protects U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson from facing a difficult reelection. Republicans currently hold four of Louisiana’s six congressional seats.
A half-hour Senate debate revolved around Democrats contending that the proposed map is racially gerrymandered to squeeze more Black voters 鈥� who tend to be registered Democrats 鈥� into a single district.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Jay Morris, repeatedly insisted that party affiliation, not race, drove district boundaries.
鈥淚 purposely put more Democrats into District 2 to make the remaining districts better performing for Republicans,鈥� Morris said at one point.
Morris said he told the map demographers to avoid including any data on race or including those statistics in information shared with lawmakers before the vote.
Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins told Morris, 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 a racially gerrymandered district that’s going to get us into a lot of trouble here.”
鈥淎gree to disagree,鈥� Morris told Jenkins.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign the new map into law.
Louisiana is currently using a to comply with the Voting Rights Act by including a second district with a majority-Black population.
That map, however, was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court responded on April 30 by striking it down as an illegal racial gerrymander.
the state鈥檚 U.S. House primary, scheduled for May 16, until later this summer to allow time for Republican lawmakers to draw and pass a new map.
The proposed map redraws Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields’ district, clustering it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana. It also adds part of Baton Rouge to a heavily Democratic, majority-Black district based in New Orleans currently represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter.
More lawsuits were expected over the new map.
Democrats say the proposed map could draw a lawsuit over racial gerrymandering. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision criticized the Legislature’s map earlier this week for leaving a majority-Black district in place.
鈥淔rom the beginning of the process, I said we鈥檙e building a house on a broken foundation 鈥� now it feels more like quicksand,鈥� Democratic state Sen. Royce Duplessis said during floor debate. 鈥淚鈥檓 really, really troubled by the fact that we鈥檙e going to continue to lead the charge in this race to the bottom.鈥�
In the weeks following the Supreme Court鈥檚 decision, several other Republican-controlled Southern states have seized upon a weakened federal Voting Rights Act to try to redraw their own congressional districts.
So far, Republicans are . But that doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean they will win a narrowly divided U.S. House in November. Republicans think they could gain as many as 15 seats from their so far, while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.
Florida鈥檚 Legislature just hours after the ruling, completing a redrawing that was in the works in anticipation of the decision. It could yield Republicans as many as four additional seats in the midterm elections.
new U.S. House districts a week after the ruling, carving up a majority-Black district based in Memphis in a Republican attempt to win an additional seat.
In Alabama, Republicans are attempting to pick up another seat by redrawing two districts where Black residents compose a majority or close to it. Democrats hold both seats, and the proposal is .
, meanwhile, decided against redistricting, despite pressure from Trump.
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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
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