Louisiana Redistricting: Fields Put Out to Pasture
One month after Gov. Jeff Landry canceled Louisiana's May 16 House primaries, the Republican signed into law a new congressional map that will help the GOP flip a Democratic-held seat this fall and lock in a 5-1 advantage in the congressional delegation.
Landry and Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry (no relation) called off Louisiana’s scheduled primaries after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state’s current congressional map was an unconstitutional gerrymander that discriminated against the state’s white voters.
That decision, in Louisiana v. Callais, upended several decades of Voting Rights Act interpretations and prompted several states across the South, such as Alabama and Tennessee, to dismantle districts with majority Black populations ahead of the fall midterm elections.
All of those seats elected Democrats to the House, and were reconfigured as majority white populations that will likely elect Republicans.
Louisiana Republicans followed a similar pattern. Democrat Cleo Fields’ majority-Black 6th District, which currently stretches from Baton Rouge northwest to Shreveport in a diagonal line across the state, is split up across five districts in the new map — including the new 6th, which bears little resemblance to its predecessor. The new 6th is rated Solid Republican, making it a Republican flip.
Instead of holding a traditional primary and general election, Louisiana will instead hold a jungle primary for House races on Election Day in November,…
