A lawsuit seeks to block Louisiana’s new congressional map that has 2nd mostly Black district
NEW ORLEANS– The Louisiana Legislature’s redrawn congressional map, which gives the state a second, majority-black district, is being challenged by twelve self-identified “non-African American” voters in a new lawsuit.
The challenge filed Wednesday and assigned to a judge in Lafayette says the map, which Republican lawmakers agreed to as a result of a 2022 federal lawsuit filed in Baton Rouge, is the result of textbook ‘racist gerrymandering’ .
It seeks an injunction to block the use of the card in this year’s elections and the appointment of a three-judge panel to oversee the case.
At least one person, state Sen. Cleo Fields, a black Democrat from Baton Rouge, has already said he will run in the new district. It’s not clear what impact the lawsuit will have on that district, or on the 2022 lawsuit, which is still ongoing.
New boundary lines for government districts are redrawn by the legislature every ten years to account for population shifts reflected in census data. The Louisiana Legislature drew a new map in 2022 that was challenged by voting rights advocates because only one in six U.S. House maps was majority Black, even though the state’s population is about one-third Black. A veto over the map by the then government. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, was oversubscribed.
In June 2022, Baton Rouge-based U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick issued an injunction against the map, saying challengers were likely to win their lawsuit claiming it violated the Voting Rights Act. When the case was appealed, the U.S. Supreme Court in June issued an unexpected ruling in favor of black voters in a congressional redistricting case in Alabama.
In November, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the state a January deadline to draw a new congressional district.
Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican who succeeded Edwards in January, was the state’s attorney general and was among the GOP leaders who had opposed Dick’s statements. But he called a special session to redraw the map, saying the Legislature should do that instead of a federal judge.
The bill he supported connects Shreveport in the northwest with parts of the Baton Rouge area in the southeast, creating a second majority-black district while boosting Rep.’s reelection chances. Garrett Graves, a Republican who supported an opponent of Landry in the governor’s office, could be in jeopardy. race.
Landry’s office did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Although the new lawsuit names the state’s top election official, Secretary of State Nancy Landry, as a defendant, it was filed in the Western Federal District of Louisiana. The lawsuit said it was appropriate to file a complaint there because voters “faced a violation of their rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in this district.”
Most of the judges in the Western District were nominated by Republicans. The assigned judge, David Joseph, was appointed by former President Donald Trump.