May 13 (UPI) — A Louisiana Senate committee voted early Wednesday to create a new congressional map to give Republicans another seat in the House of Representatives and remove one majority-Black district.
The map could give the state five Republicans and one Democrat in the House, compared with its current 4-2 split.
The bill has to pass a full a Senate vote Thursday, then it would move to the state House of Representatives. It must pass both chambers by June 1.
The Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee met from 7 p.m. Tuesday to 4:30 a.m. CDT Wednesday as they discussed Senate Bill 121 and heard from Louisianans and advocacy groups.
The lawmakers rejected a plan that would preserve the two Democratic seats, but they chose not to eliminate both of them. The one that will remain is the majority-Black, New Orleans-area district held by Rep. Troy Carter, D-La. Under the new map, that district would stretch into Baton Rouge and into the district held by Rep. Cleo Fields, D-La. That could mean that the two representatives would face each other in an election.
The Louisiana primaries were scheduled for Tuesday and June 27, but they were suspended by Gov. Jeff Landry after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in late April that struck down the state’s previous map, calling it an unlawful racial gerrymander. No new date has been announced.
The ruling struck down an important provision of the Voting Rights Act, Section 2, which disallowed states to dilute Black Americans’ voting power. The 6-3 decision in the case Louisiana v. Callais pushed lawmakers in other southern states to follow suit.
“This 5-1 map is a political power grab,” Louisiana Illuminator reported Sen. Sam Jenkins, D-Shreveport, said.
The bill the Senate rejected was Senate Bill 407, created by Sen. Ed Price, D-Gonzales. His bill created two districts that were competitive for Democrats, but neither was majority-Black. Price said he made the map using party demographics instead of race.
In the late night hearing, many activists told the committee why they opposed the new map.
“I’m personally here because I can’t think of a single thing that’s more important than this,” Britain Forsyth told the committee, the Illuminator reported. “I can’t think of anything more important than ensuring that everyone in my home state is able to elect someone who represents them and will listen to them and answer to them. And I’m here because Jim Crow maps like this have no place in our state.”