What to know about Louisiana’s effort to redraw congressional districts before the midterm elections

Louisiana must redraw its congressional districts in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that its map was racially gerrymandered. The question before state lawmakers now is how exactly to do that.

The House is considering one option Thursday that differs somewhat from a plan already passed by the Senate. But both plans from the Republican-led chambers would eliminate a majority-Black district at issue in the Supreme Court’s ruling. Both would also give Republicans a chance at picking up an additional seat in this year’s midterm elections.

“We drew the map to improve Republican strength,” state Rep. Beau Beaullieu said while opening Thursday’s debate.

Since the Supreme Court’s decision in late April, several other Southern states already have seized upon a weakened federal Voting Rights Act to try to redraw their own congressional districts. It’s the latest flare-up in what’s been a heated national redistricting battle heading into the November elections, spurred along by President Donald Trump.

So far, Republicans are winning the redistricting contest. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they will win the U.S. House in November. Democrats need a net gain of only a few seats to flip control of the chamber. Trump faces negative approval ratings. And in midterm elections, the president’s party typically loses congressional seats.

In 2022, Republicans in the Louisiana Legislature overrode the veto of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards to enact new congressional districts based on the 2020 census. Five Republicans and one Democrat won election under those lines in 2022. But the federal courts said the map violated the Voting Rights Act by not including a second district with a majority-Black population.

The Legislature responded in 2024 by creating a second majority-Black district, stretching more than 200 miles (321 kilometers) northwest from Baton Rouge to Shreveport. That map resulted in the election of Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields. But that map also was challenged, and the Supreme Court struck it down as an illegal racial gerrymander.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has since postponed the state’s May 16 congressional primary until later this summer to allow time to again redraw districts. The state House and Senate are working to agree on a plan before Monday’s scheduled end of their session.

Beaullieu said Republicans opted against a map aimed at winning all six of the state’s U.S. House seats because it would have required adding more Democratic voters to Republican-held districts, potentially backfiring by jeopardizing the reelection of House Speaker Mike Johnson or Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

Louisiana legislative committees have heard hours of public testimony from people opposed to the Republican redistricting plans.

On Wednesday, Democratic state House leaders from Georgia and Texas stood alongside their party colleagues in the Louisiana Legislature to show regional solidarity and resistance to Republican redistricting efforts.

Georgia House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley said Louisiana’s effort to eliminate one of its two majority-Black districts is a step backward for Black Americans in the South.

In the past, “the government was used as a weapon against our community. It used the law, it used courts, it used maps to make sure that people who look like me would never have real representation, that we would never be heard, that we would be present but never powerful,” said Hugley, who is Black. Now, she added, “Republicans are redrawing voting maps to lock in one-party control.”

Democratic state Rep. Edmond Jordan, who chairs the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, said the battle over congressional districts would shift back to the courts after lawmakers pass a new map.

“We are going to continue to fight for the African Americans, not only of this state but throughout the whole country,” Jordan said.

In the month since the Supreme Court’s ruling, several Southern states already have acted on redistricting.

Florida’s Republican-led legislature passed new congressional districts just hours after the ruling, completing a redrawing that already was in the works in anticipation of the decision. A state judge this week declined to block the use of those districts, which could yield Republicans as many as four additional seats in the midterm elections.

Tennessee adopted new U.S. House districts a week after the ruling, carving up a majority-Black district based in Memphis in a Republican attempt to win an additional seat.

Alabama also attempted to change its congressional districts, though a federal judicial panel this week blocked a Republican-drawn map that it determined intentionally discriminates against Black people. The state’s Republican attorney general has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let the map be used this year. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey also pushed back a deadline to certify candidates for an Aug. 11 special congressional primary from Friday to next Wednesday, in hopes the Supreme Court will issue a decision by then.

Despite pressure from Trump, South Carolina’s Senate this week opted against congressional redistricting. Some senators said it was too late to make changes since in-person early voting had begun. Other Republican lawmakers had reservations that the plan could backfire by allowing Democrats to win more seats.