Eric Holder Jr., chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said hard-fought progress in voting rights in Louisiana has been erased.
Parties in the litigation that overturned Louisiana’s previous congressional map containing two Black-majority districts have roundly criticized the state’s new map – with some saying it’s still a racial gerrymander and others arguing it dilutes’ minorities’ voting power.
In a filing in the Western District of Louisiana this week, the plaintiffs questioned whether the new map, which was passed by the Legislature as Senate Bill 121 and signed by Gov. Jeff Landry last month, is consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Louisiana v. Callais decision. That ruling declared the previous map a racial gerrymander that violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
“Less certain is whether the (new) map has avoided adopting racial line-drawing around District 2, where at least one plaintiff still resides,” the plaintiffs said in this week’s filing. “In the event the press of time requires this court to approve SB 121 as a temporary, interim remedy, this court should retain jurisdiction to ensure before the 2028 election that District 2 does not sort voters based on race.”
District 2 in the new map is the state’s remaining Black-majority congressional district, which forms a narrow band running from New Orleans to East Baton Rouge.
Democracy Docket, a media outlet that tracks redistricting and election litigation nationwide, expressed doubt that any future litigation could change the Louisiana congressional map.
“While lawsuits could still block this redistricting, (the Legislature’s vote last month) likely caps years of litigation, legislation and Louisiana ping-ponging between alternate congressional maps,” Democracy Docket said in an email.
The 12 plaintiffs in Louisiana v. Callais, described as non-African American voters, challenged the old congressional map in a lawsuit filed in January of last year. The Supreme Court agreed with them about the illegality of the map in a landmark decision last month.
Other critics of the new map, however, called it a setback for voting rights and a move that would dilute the voting power of 250,000 Louisianans while halving Black representation in the state.
“Louisiana has only had four Black members of Congress since Reconstruction, and that was largely due to the creation of court-mandated maps that protected Black voters and ensured nothing more than their equal access to representation,” Eric Holder Jr., chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), said in a prepared statement.
About one-third of Louisiana’s voting population is Black, but the state now has only a single majority-minority district out of six congressional seats.
The NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund (LDF) said the new map has effectively rolled back strides toward equal representation in the state.
“The congressional map passed by the Louisiana Legislature is a flagrant effort to consolidate political power in the hands of the white majority and deny communities across the state – especially Black Louisianians – an equal opportunity to participate in the political process,” LDF said in a statement.
The national ACLU echoed those sentiments in an Instagram post.
“This is a blatant effort to consolidate political power in the hands of the state’s white majority and deny Black people an equal opportunity to participate in our democracy,” the post states.
The Louisiana v. Callais plaintiffs have also accused Louisiana officials of slow-walking the implementation of the new map in order to run out the clock to avert a federal district court ruling rejecting the map prior to the primary election process getting under way. Louisian’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, has argued in court filings that the new map is constitutionally compliant with the Supreme Court’s opinion.
