Louisiana Lawmakers Pass Map Eliminating Majority-Black District, Giving Republicans Another Seat

Louisiana lawmakers passed a new congressional map Friday in Baton Rouge designed to help Republicans pick up a seat while eliminating one of the state’s two majority-Black House districts, both represented by Democrats.

“Louisiana approves new congressional map that could allow Republicans to pick up a seat, eliminates 1 majority Black district It could allow the GOP to flip one of the state's two Democratic-held seats”

ABC News

The Associated Press reported approval came after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s current map as an illegal racial gerrymander because it was drawn to include two majority-Black districts, weakening the landmark 1965 federal Voting Rights Act.

ABC News

The map approved Friday reflected Republican arguments that a 5-1 map is safer for the GOP, with Republicans currently holding four of Louisiana’s six congressional seats.

ABC News said the Louisiana Senate gave final approval to a bill after dissent from Democrats, and it framed the change as potentially allowing Republicans to flip one of the state’s two Democratic-held House seats in the 2026 midterms.

On the Senate floor, Democratic state Sen. Royce Duplessis said the process was “building a house on a broken foundation” and warned that Louisiana was going into 2026 “going into a map that we know is flawed, that we know is going to get struck down.”

Republican state Sen. Jay Morris defended the map ahead of the final vote, saying, “I think we have a map here that meets all the traditional redistricting criteria. It's not racially gerrymandered.”

Democracy Docket

ABC News reported that the new map comes weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s current map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, setting off a scramble of mid-decade redistricting in Louisiana and other states.

The New York Times reported that Gov. Jeff Landry signed the new congressional map on Friday after the State Senate approved it 28 to 10 early Friday afternoon, following a House vote that fell almost completely along party lines.

The New York Times said the new map eliminates one of Louisiana’s two majority-Black districts, reducing the number of Black voters who live in it and handing Republicans a structural advantage ahead of the November midterms.

NBC News reported that the map preserves one majority-Black district that snakes from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and is expected to be challenged by voting rights advocates, while also saying a third of Louisiana’s population is Black.

NBC News also said Louisiana delayed its House primaries scheduled for May 16 to Nov. 3 after discarding some 40,000 votes cast in primaries already, and it described the map as likely the last one implemented by a state legislature ahead of the 2026 election.

WTOP reported that Republicans expected to gain as many as 15 seats from their redistricting efforts so far, while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah, and it said more lawsuits were expected over the new map.