The Louisiana House and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced legislation Wednesday to create new state House districts that would maintain the number of minority-majority seats at 29.
The committee approved House Bill 14 on a vote of 13-4 despite testimony from students and voting rights organizations calling for an increase in minority representation. Many who spoke cited the state’s roughly one-third Black population in demanding lawmakers find a way to increase minority seats to 35 out of the current 105.
“The map that’s currently being presented … does not reflect the population changes in Louisiana and does not represent a minority population in proportion to what our current population is,” former House candidate Tammi Savoie said. “It’s clear to me the primary purpose of this map and the maps that are being proposed is maintaining incumbency.”
HB 14, drafted by Rep. John Stefanski, R-Crowley, and sponsored by House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, R-Gonzales, would break up House District 23, represented by Rep. Kenny Cox, D-Natchitoches, because of population loss in northwest Louisiana. HB 14 would shift voters in that district to neighboring districts, and create a new minority-majority seat in New Orleans to maintain the current number of minority leaning districts.
Representatives from People’s Promise, a voting rights organization, alleged the elimination of District 23 and lack of more minority-majority districts stemmed from “racist ideologies” and vowed to mount efforts to remove lawmakers who voted in favor of HB 14.
“If these maps are not there, we will organize and mobilize across this state to replace you,” People’s Promise founder Breka Peoples told the committee.
State Rep. Barry Ivey, R-Baton Rouge, explained the difficulty of increasing minority representation without diluting existing minority districts and noted that maps proposed by minority representatives also maintained 29 minority seats.
“I agree with you there should be opportunity to increase that number. Obviously the population is reflective of more seats than that,” he said. “There’s a challenge in trying to balance all these things to try to do that.”
Stefanski stressed he remains “willing to have conversations on everything in this bill.”
The committee deferred consideration of another House redistricting bill, House Bill 15, sponsored by Rep. Sam Jenkins, D-Shreveport, until Thursday.
In the Senate, Republicans approved a redistricting bill Tuesday for new congressional seats that maintains Louisiana’s single majority black district. Senate Bill 5, sponsored by Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell, was approved on a vote of 27-12, despite calls for more minority representation from Democrats and a failed attempt to amend the bill to add a second majority-minority district.
The Senate approval came after Republicans blocked several other proposals to add a second majority Black congressional district in the Senate and the Governmental Affairs Committee that Hewitt chairs.
Hewitt and Republicans argued that by spreading minority voters between two districts it could dilute minority representation to the point neither would provide a real opportunity to elect a candidate favored by the Black community.
“You could put the current minority district in jeopardy and wind up with no minority district,” Hewitt said.
