Democrats pitch second majority-minority district in Congress for Louisiana; Republicans resist
7th February 2022 · 0 Comments
By Wes Muller
Contributing Writer
(lailluminator.com) — A state Senate committee stopped short of advancing any maps of revised district lines for Louisiana’s seats in Congress, choosing Thursday to defer multiple options submitted last week.
Nonetheless, members of the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee studied six proposed versions – five submitted by Democrats and one from a Republican.
Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, offered three maps the NAACP Legal Defense Fund has drawn. Each would create two minority districts out of Louisiana’s 2nd and 5th congressional districts..
Sen. Jay Luneau, D-Alexandria, proposed a map with two majority-minority strongholds in the same two districts. Luneau’s 5th District, which Julia Letlow, R-Monroe, currently represents, would capture much of Shreveport and Baton Rouge, giving the district a minority edge with 54 percent of its registered voters Black and 42 percent white.
A second majority-minority district has been the most common request from voting rights advocates who have taken part in the legislature’s redistricting effort since it began last year.
The 2020 Census confirmed Black residents in Louisiana are significantly under-represented in federal and state government. A third of the state’s population is Black, yet Black residents make up a majority in only one of Louisiana’s six congressional districts and just one of its seven state Supreme Court districts.
Minority voters are also under-represented in the Legislature and on the state school board.
Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell, said at last Thursday’s committee meeting that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 does not guarantee Louisiana’s one-third minority population should have one-third minority representation in Congress.
“[N]othing in this section establishes a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population,” Hewitt said multiple times, citing Section 2 of the act.
Luneau disagreed, saying courts have interpreted the passage to guarantee the opportunity for minorities to elect a candidate of their choice.
Citing her interpretation, Hewitt proposed a map that keeps just one majority-minority stronghold in the 2nd District, the seat held by Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, who is Black. The Slidell senator said one of the goals in her map was to unite rural and agricultural interests, pointing out that agriculture is an $11 billion industry in Louisiana.
The 5th District in Hewitt’s map comprises mostly white rural communities stretching from north and central Louisiana and the top half of the Florida parishes north of Lake Pontchartrain. It captures a registered voter population that is 64 percent white and 33 percent Black. The 2nd District would maintain its current registered voter demographic: 61 percent Black, 31 percent white.
Arguing against a second majority-minority district, Hewitt said it poses “a great risk” to weaken the state’s only current minority stronghold. To add another, she said it would require taking some of the 2nd District territory and reducing its minority voter population from 61 percent to about 53 percent.
Sen. Ed Price, D-Gonzales, said there are no hard numbers to support Hewitt’s claim.
“We don’t know that a district with… 53 percent voting age population would not elect a minority in that district,” Price said. “We don’t have that data.”
Sen. Gary Smith, D-Norco, proposed a map with the 2nd and 5th as majority-minority districts. Their Black registered voter populations would be 54 percent and 53 percent, respectively.
Smith said his map proposes a much more concise 6th District, which Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, holds, that hugs the east bank of the Mississippi from south Baton Rouge to Metairie and captures all of Livingston Parish.
The 6th District is currently 71 percent white and covers territory east and west of the Mississippi, excluding much of the predominately-Black industrial corridor known as “Cancer Alley.”
Louisiana Illuminator (www.lailluminator.com) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization.
This article originally published in the February 7, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
