Louisiana approves new congressional map after Supreme Court ruling

Louisiana’s new congressional map would leave Black voters with just one majority-Black district in a state where they make up roughly one-third of the population, a dramatic shift that hands Republicans a 5-1 advantage in the state’s six-member delegation.

The Louisiana House approved the plan on May 28 by a 66-35 vote after more than seven hours of debate, clearing the way for the Legislature to finish redistricting before the June 1 end of session. The Senate had already advanced the map earlier in May, putting lawmakers on a fast track to redraw district lines after the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais.

In that 6-3 ruling, the justices struck down Louisiana’s previous congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and left in place a lower-court order barring the state from using it in future elections. The challenged map had created a second majority-Black district after lawmakers adopted it in 2024 to respond to a Section 2 Voting Rights Act lawsuit and a federal judge’s finding that the earlier lines likely diluted Black voting strength.

The new plan eliminates the majority-Black District 6 currently represented by Cleo Fields and preserves Troy Carter’s New Orleans-based District 2 as the state’s only Democratic-leaning seat. Under the proposed lines, Carter’s district would stretch from New Orleans along the Mississippi River and absorb majority-Black neighborhoods in East Baton Rouge Parish, raising the possibility of a member-versus-member primary between Carter and Fields depending on the final court posture and election calendar.

Democratic lawmakers pushed an alternative map that would have preserved the 4-2 split, but Republicans prevailed with the 5-1 configuration as part of a broader redistricting scramble across the South. The ruling has intensified fears that Voting Rights Act protections could weaken further, encouraging Republican-led states to revisit district lines and revisit how many majority-minority districts remain on the map.