The Supreme Court recently dashed Democrats’ hopes of gaining a new House seat in Alabama. But the party could still nab a second district in Louisiana, where politics rather than litigation is likely to be decisive.
The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated an Alabama congressional map that a lower court had said diluted the power of black voters. Alabama has seven House districts and its population is about 27% black, with black voters as the majority in one district.
The lower court, relying on the Voting Rights Act, had ordered the state Legislature to create a second district in which black voters could elect a representative of their choice. The Supreme Court rejected that for now but said it could reconsider after hearing full arguments at some point.
Louisiana, which has six House seats, has similar arguments being made as state legislators redraw its congressional maps. Black residents comprise 33% of Louisiana’s population. So, under a strict numerically based system, black voters, who largely back Democratic candidates, would have a shot at two seats.
Currently, the Louisiana House delegation has five Republicans and the lone Democratic Rep. Troy Carter, who is black.
Democrats in Louisiana have some leverage, as the state’s governor, John Bel Edwards, is a Democrat. He supports a redistricting map that would yield two majority-black districts.
Louisiana Republicans with strong majorities in both chambers of the Legislature want nothing to do with that approach to congressional line-drawing. State Senate Republicans on Tuesday approved a redistricting plan in a party-line vote of 27-12, aimed at keeping the five Republicans and one Democrat status quo.
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Republican state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, who proposed the plan, insisted the GOP-backed map is more likely to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Narrow black majorities spread across two districts could actually reduce the chances of black constituents electing a candidate of their preference, Hewitt said. Proposals for a second majority-minority district estimated it would have about a 54% share of black voters, compared to the present 62% in the 2nd Congressional District (represented by Carter) that contains nearly all of the city of New Orleans and stretches west and north to Baton Rouge.
Ron Faucheux, a nonpartisan political analyst and former Louisiana state representative, told the Washington Examiner the creation of two districts meant to be majority-minority could stretch available voters too thinly to achieve that goal.
“One of the issues that isn’t being talked about is that when you create two black districts, the percentage of black voters in each of those districts start going down to be able to build two districts,” Faucheux said. “And if they go down too far, even though they might be a majority-minority district, in certain elections, it doesn’t necessarily mean an African American will win the seat.”
Edwards has not said whether he would use his veto power to block the state Senate-approved maps. Edwards said in December that the task of creating a second majority-minority district would be a “major reworking of the map.”
But Republicans in the state House also lack the numbers to override a possible veto by a two-thirds vote, unless they gain favor from two independents or centrist Democrats. So, Edwards could seek to form a deal with conservatives who desperately do not want to lose the 5th Congressional District seat, which is most likely to be abolished and encompasses rural northeastern Louisiana and much of central Louisiana. That seat is held by GOP Rep. Julia Letlow.
“It’s 50/50 what Edwards is going to do,” J. Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics told the Washington Examiner. “Other than veto, [Edwards] could just let it come to law without a signature if he doesn’t want to pick any fights and he wants to kind of keep his hands clean.”
Creating a redistricting dispute against the GOP-backed map could set back other funding priorities of the governor, Coleman said.
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Faucheux said he also believes “it’s likely” the Louisiana redistricting map could wind up in federal court, a point underscored by Coleman, who said, “There’s going to be litigation regardless.”
The Washington Examiner contacted Edwards’s office but did not receive a response.
