On Wednesday, the Louisiana Senate approved a bipartisan plan that would add a second majority-black U.S. House district in the state after a federal court deemed Louisiana’s current map illegal.
The approval — which came over the objection of U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican — tees the congressional map up for consideration in the state House.
In 2022, a federal judge in Louisiana said the existing map violated the Voting Rights Act, and the judge has since given state lawmakers until Jan. 30 to draw up a fair one. In Louisiana, where roughly a third of the population is Black, only one of the six congressional districts is majority-Black.
In Louisiana, where roughly a third of the population is Black, only one of the six congressional districts is majority-Black.
The Senate-approved map — which is backed by Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican — would bring the number of majority-Black districts to two, in part by redrawing U.S. Rep. Garret Graves’ district. Graves, a Republican, isn’t happy about this.
Johnson said Tuesday that he wants state lawmakers to stick with the gerrymandered map they have in place. (Notably, Graves is one of the speaker’s allies in their raucous GOP caucus.)
“We’ve just seen, and are very concerned with, the proposed Congressional map presented in the Louisiana Legislature,” he wrote on X.
“It remains my position that the existing map is constitutional and that the legal challenge to it should be tried on merits so the State has adequate opportunity to defend its merits,” he added. “Should the state not prevail at trial, there are multiple other map options that are legally compliant and do not require the unnecessary surrender of a Republican seat in Congress.”
We’ve just seen, and are very concerned with, the proposed Congressional map presented in the Louisiana Legislature. It remains my position that the existing map is constitutional and that the legal challenge to it should be tried on merits so the State has adequate opportunity…
— Mike Johnson (@MikeJohnson) January 16, 2024
Johnson’s remarks suggest that he wants to exhaust every legal challenge available to keep Louisiana’s current map — and his homeboy Garret Graves — in place. I see shades of Kevin McCarthy here. You may remember that he reached out to Republican lawmakers in Alabama last summer after a Supreme Court ruling required them to redraw their state’s congressional districts to abide by the Constitution.
The then-House speaker gave the impression that he had reached out with concerns over how the redraw might affect the GOP’s House majority. The new speaker, with his blatantly political push to keep his state’s current map in place, is much less coy in comparison.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.