State legislators in Louisiana have officially approved an update to the state’s Congressional map that is expected to send an additional Democrat to Congress beyond the single member of the party representing Louisianians in the state’s current roster of House members.
Louisiana is the home state of Republican Mike Johnson, the Congressman currently serving as Speaker of the House, and he’d spoken specifically against the prospect of Louisiana legislators going ahead and moving forward with a new map.
The state took this action under the shadow of a court decision against the prior lines imposed after the most recent census, which were used for the midterm elections in 2022. The issue raised with this map was the racial representation, with just a single Black individual among the state’s House members despite Black Louisianans comprising about one-third of the state’s population. The new map, as recently passed by state legislators, adds a district with a majority among prospective voters from the Black community. “The new 6th district now has a majority-Black voting age population and will almost assuredly elect a Democratic representative later this year,” POLITICO said.
The state could have easily ended up with a judicially orchestrated map if they simply refused to go along with pressure for a new set of districts.
A similar situation unfolded in Alabama, where Republican legislators tried resisting court directives before a federal court-backed special master — meaning an outside expert brought in for this purpose — eventually helped set up a new map of Congressional districts for the state that added a district where the numbers said that Black residents would have a greater chance of success in elections. (Still, Alabama’s newly added district didn’t quite reach an outright majority of Black Alabamians among prospective voters.) Authorities in Alabama were sticking to their opposition and pursuing further court proceedings even after the newest map was okay’ed — which is also expected to send another Democrat to Congress.
