Louisiana rushes to redraw congressional maps after Gov. Landry suspends primaries
In a Nutshell
Louisiana Republicans, led by Gov. Jeff Landry, suspended congressional primaries and are redrawing maps after a Supreme Court ruling struck down the state's sixth district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander under the 14th Amendment, discarding over 45,000 early ballots to enable the changes. Black voters and Rep. Cleo Fields fear the move will dilute minority voting power protected by the Voting Rights Act, potentially eliminating Louisiana's sole Black-held congressional seat in a state with 30% Black population and no Black statewide officials since Reconstruction. The redistricting frenzy reflects a national partisan arms race, with experts warning of a more polarized Congress amid ongoing legal battles and protests.
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Chaos and protests broke out in state houses as Republicans and Democrats race to draw new congressional maps. The usually arcane process has become an unprecedented political free-for-all. At stake is control of Congress in November's midterm elections. With a razor-thin margin, both parties rush to draw new lines to tilt the House of Representatives in their favor. A landmark Supreme Court decision 11 days ago found a congressional map in Louisiana unconstitutional because legislators relied too heavily on race to draw the lines.
Louisiana's Republican governor and his party move to carve out new districts. Many Black voters fear their district will be wiped off the map.
I just don't understand why there is nobody able to stop this train. You see all the wrong. You see uh it's racist. You know it.
This past Monday, a packed house at the Galilee Baptist Church, the spiritual anchor to the west side of Shreveport where memories of Jim Crow run deep. Constituents lined up with questions about the fate of their congressional district. Their Democratic congressman, Cleo Fields, didn't have many answers.
Sometimes you get a setback to be set up. I mean, don't underestimate that power of the vote. That's what they are trying to take away.
Congressman Fields has served Louisiana for most of his life, first elected to the House of Representatives in 1992. He lost then won again in neverending redistricting battles. Now he could face another loss.
You believe this will not be your seat when and if this map is redrawn? I think it's highly unlikely. You have said this is not about you, your job, the seat that you hold. Personally, I'm just occupying the seat. And that's one of the things people get confused with when there's a voting rights seat created. It guarantees a black an election. No, it doesn't guarantee a black anything. It just gives a black an opportunity to win an election. And that's why they even passed the Voting Rights Act.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act was created to protect minority voting power in Louisiana, which has one of the highest percentages of Black residents in the country, about 30%. There has never been a Black politician elected to Congress in a district where whites are in the majority. The recent Supreme Court ruling virtually gutted the landmark legislation, but some say its time has passed.
Conservative African-Americans have praised the court's ruling as proof of real racial progress.
Oh, there is progress in the nation, but there is not progress in the southern part of our country to the extent that you should do away with the voting rights act. You tell those same folk to come here and run for office and get elected.
The sixth district stretches more than 200 miles from Baton Rouge to Shreveport. During oral arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts called it quote, "A snake that runs from one side of the state, angling up to the other, picking up black populations as it goes along."
The case was brought by a group describing themselves as non-African-American voters. They sued Louisiana under the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause, which says the government must treat everyone equally under the law. In its ruling, the court called the sixth district map an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
Gerrymandering is the process of redrawing political voting lines to benefit the party in power and it's perfectly legal. Named after founding father Elbridge Gerry, who created a district resembling a salamander, thus gerrymander. A snake in Louisiana was a lobster in Virginia and earmuffs in Illinois.
Yeah, it absolutely looks like a snake.
Congressman Cleo Fields acknowledges Black representation in Washington has grown. This Congress has more Black members than at any point in history, 63.
Is that not progress? Yeah, it's progress, but it's not progress for Louisiana. There are people who in this state and others just will not vote for a black person for anything. You tell me I have to jump a certain height, that's the rule, I can work to do that. Run a certain speed. If that's the rule, let me work at it. I can do that. But if you tell me in order to be elected to Congress, you have to be white. There's nothing I can do about that. I need help from my government.
In Baton Rouge, met Governor Jeff Landry at the governor's mansion. A close ally of President Trump, he dominates Louisiana politics. The colorful conservative Cajun was the state's attorney general before winning the top job in 2023.
You cannot say that we are all created equal and that states must treat everyone equal under the law and then allow a law to sort people based upon race.
Following the Supreme Court decision, Governor Landry declared a state of emergency and abruptly suspended congressional house primaries right as voting was starting, ordering a do-over at a future date, leaving voters dazed and confused.
You declared a state of emergency. What exactly is the emergency? We've got the highest court of the land says the map that you have is unconstitutional. So we don't have a map under which our voters can vote on. This country has held elections during the Civil War. During two world wars, elections still went on. We're going to have an election and we're actually going to have an election on election day. But voting was already happening as we sit here right now. Uh more than 45,000 ballots have been returned. What happens to those? Oh, those ballots are discarded and those voters will vote again in November. You say that like it's not a big deal. Well, it's not a big deal. It's not my fault. Go if anybody has a grievance, take it to the United States Supreme Court.
Legal challenges over redistricting have consumed Louisiana with federal courts repeatedly forcing lawmakers to redraw maps.
Our voters are tired of it. I mean, does not Louisiana deserve some clarity? How do you want to see this look? I want Louisiana to be finally unshackled from the decades of litigation. Would it concern you if there were no African-American representatives from Louisiana in Congress? That's a decision that the legislature is going to make. But I don't believe that we have to go and draw a district that guarantees us a minority representation.
Redistricting usually happens at the beginning of each decade using census data. But last summer, President Trump pushed Texas Republicans to redraw maps in hopes of gaining five seats ahead of the midterms. California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom responded by pushing a redistricting plan of his own that could give Democrats in his state five additional blue seats. Even former President Obama, who has publicly opposed gerrymandering in the past, now pushes Democrats to fight back and pick up as many congressional seats as they can.
The political tit-for-tat has turned into a coast-to-coast gerrymandering arms race. Republicans feel increasingly confident following court rulings in their favor in Louisiana and Virginia. This past week, their efforts to redraw maps led to protests at the state house in Tennessee and Alabama.
Whoever draws the maps now has no legal requirement that the map be drawn in any way to protect the political power of minority groups.
Steven Vladeck, a Georgetown law professor who studies the Supreme Court, predicts gerrymandering will lead to an even more polarized Congress dominated by lawmakers representing the extremes of both parties.
Instead of once every 10 years per the Constitution, states saying, "Oh, we got to redraw our maps because we have more data about who our people are." Now, it's let's redraw our maps whenever it's to our partisan political advantage to do so.
Is the biggest difference now President Trump's in office? Oh, no. In fact, to me, the president is irrelevant in this issue right now. He's been heaping praise on you for this. Well, I'm sure that the president would like to see the House of Representatives stay in Republican control. I do have to ask you point blank, has the president asked you to redraw maps in order to help him in the midterm? President has not asked me to redraw the maps.
That job falls to the Republican supermajority in Louisiana's state legislature, which is already hard at work redrawing the maps, capitalizing on the Supreme Court's ruling.
Justice Alito suggested in his opinion that there's less institutional racism today. Well, I would agree with that. I mean, think about it. Barack Obama was elected twice as the United States president. We've had a number of minorities elected. We've seen a rise of Republican candidates who are black get elected. I mean, are we really trying to drug up the past only to continue a failed narrative? What's the failed narrative? Well, the failed narrative is that actually that people in Louisiana are racist, that we basically we won't elect black people. I mean, I disagree with that.
No Black candidate in Louisiana has been elected to a statewide office such as governor or attorney general since Reconstruction.
For many, Governor Landry's words fall flat. Pastor Timothy Hunter, Linda Scott, and Donnie Sutton have spent their lives in Shreveport and fear the future could soon resemble the past.
The reality is at the end of the day, it's going to dilute the black vote. That's the whole purpose. This Republican Congress is all about making America Jim Crow again. There's no more check and balances. Everything that was there to guard against this type of gerrymandering is destroyed. So there's nobody to stop the train. Can you separate politics from race in this district? No, you can't. Not in all of these southern states. We've come a long ways, but not with this when it comes to race and not with the schemes that they're putting up before us. It's just a disgrace. But we must keep pressing forward. We have to. Too many people have suffered and died for us to have these rights.
I think a lot of African-American voters in this state might say they need that protection when it comes to the ballot box. I mean, we go back to Martin Luther King, right? Judge a person based upon the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
Black voters in Louisiana feel someone who looks like you, who has not lived their experience, does not address their concerns as well as someone who has lived their experience.
Well, how is it that a little country boy who grew up in a town that was primarily black, not lived through those experiences? But I do think a lot of folks might say those experiences are not necessarily the same. Well, you're saying I should not judge a person just because the person is black, and I agree with that. But isn't it the opposite that I shouldn't be judged just because I'm white or Hispanic or Indian? I mean, here we are after all of the different cases, after all of the rectification of the sins of the past, which certainly no one has denied. And yet we're still trying to find some sliver of discrimination and race. I think a lot of people would say you don't have to try to find it. It's there. I would say that it would reside in people's hearts, not in their laws.
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