For more than a year, Republicans have resisted drawing another minority district, saying that the current map, which has white majorities in five of six congressional districts, is fair and constitutional.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — With bipartisan support, a proposed Louisiana congressional map that would create a second majority-Black district sailed through the state Senate on Wednesday and will advance to the House chamber for debate.
The Senate’s approval is a win for Democrats who
Under the proposed map passed Wednesday, 54% of the voting-age population in the district currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Garret Graves would be Black — up from the current 23%. Graves opposes the plan, saying in a statement to The Advocate that it “ignore(s) the redistricting principles of compactness and communities of interest.”
The lawmaker who filed the legislation, GOP state Rep. Glen Womack, said that when creating the map he prioritized protecting the seats of U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, as well as that of Congresswoman Julia Letlow, who represents Womack’s region.
Louisiana currently has only one majority-Black district, the 2nd District, which encompasses most of New Orleans and stretches to Baton Rouge, and is represented by U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, the state’s sole Black and Democratic member of Congress.
On the Senate floor Wednesday, Democrats raised concerns that under the proposed map, the Black voting-age population in Carter’s district would decrease to 51%. However, Democrats still voted in favor, and the legislation passed 27-11. The votes against the bill all belonged to Republican lawmakers, who continue to insist that the existing map is constitutional.
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