Redistricting, a family affair
14th February 2022 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
Not every redistricting fight is Republican versus Democrat. Sometimes, it’s geographic, and once in a while it involves a family grudge and jumping a river.
Just two weeks into the 2022 Special Legislative Session on Redistricting, the proposals heading to Gov. John Bel Edwards’ desk will keep the number of African-American districts in Louisiana approximately the same.
Ambitions to increase Black representation in the legislature, BESE and Congress to 1/3 of all seats have seemingly failed – at least so far, pending a potential veto; one which may never come, as Louisiana’s Democratic governor seems focused on the more politically plausible fight to add a partisan-competitive congressional seat around Baton Rouge rather than adding a greater number of majority-minority seats across the board – a concept which would be dead on arrival in a GOP legislature intent on creating veto-proof 2/3 majorities in both houses.
Consequently, a surprising majority of the redistricting battles have centered around Black Caucus members redrawing their own seats out of geographic and personal political concerns. Their debates occur in an atmosphere where La. Legislative leaders in both parties have resolved to only eliminate House or Senate districts held by incumbents who are currently term-limited.
New Orleans’ gain is Natchitoches’ loss, for example. Using the justification of North Louisiana population decrease, African-American State Rep. Kenny Cox saw his district effectively moved to the Mid-City area of the Crescent City in order to create a new Black-majority House seat in New Orleans. The net number of La. African-American districts would remain the same, but Cox would see his House seat divided amongst five other nearby members’ districts under the current legislation – cutting back minority representation to less than a quarter in several Northwest Louisiana House districts.
As a result, New Orleans gains a net Black-majority seat (though the Garden District-centric seat of Democrat Rep. Mandie Landry will devolve into a slight Caucasian majority thanks to the subtraction of these Mid-City precincts). However, Rep. Cox lamented to Louisiana Radio Network about the slice-and-dice of his seat: “When you divide our people up like that, you now give me 20 percent here, 25 percent right there, there’s no representation; they don’t have any right, so this is voter suppression, I’m telling you what it’s going to be.”
Of course, like many of the fights currently going on in the legislature, a family angle exists. While Rep. Cox is term limited, his brother, Coushatta Mayor Johnny Cox, had planned on running for his House District 23 seat next year. (It’s also worth noting that nearby District 5 State Rep. Alan Seabaugh is also term-limited, but erasing that seat would have meant the net loss of a Republican district, something the GOP House leadership would not countenance.)
Family politics also reared its head in the debate over the construction of two African-American Senate districts in New Orleans.
Algiers-based Sen. Gary Carter (D) has fought a pitched battle against seeing his seat drawn further into the West Bank of Jefferson Parish. The racial demographics would remain essentially the same, but only a small piece of Senate District 7 would stay in Orleans Parish. That would put Carter in danger of defeat at the hands of an African-American politician from Jefferson Parish, particularly Rep. Rodney Lyons, D-Harvey, who has hinted at a senatorial run. So, Sen. Carter proposed jumping the river and taking in parts of the seat held by term-limited State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson.
She loudly objected. Carter Peterson charged that his proposed change made little geographic sense, and violated the mandate that “communities of interest” be united. Gretna has a lot more in common with Algiers than Gert Town, after all.
She has fought to preserve her East Bank-based state Senate seat as much as possible, and the geographic logic of her argument has proven impeccable. She already had conceded part of her seat to the other side of the Mississippi River, after all, when Republican Senate President Page Cortez had already proposed that her district lines should jump to the West Bank so as to maintain its African-American majority, though in a different way than Gary Carter suggested. Losing any more precincts might be devastating to the integrity of the district, she reasoned, as she fought to keep as much on the East Bank as possible.
She ended up conceding to Cortez but beating Carter. In doing so, Carter Peterson could take comfort in a certain degree of “just desserts.” While she is no relation to Sen. Gary Carter, he – on the other hand – is the nephew of Troy Carter, who defeated Karen Carter Peterson in the second district congressional race just over a year ago. Gary Carter stepped into his uncle’s state Senate District when Troy Carter was elevated to the U.S. House of Representatives. Familial schadenfreude definitely applied.
Still, Carter Peterson did admit that an influx of Caucasian voters has transformed the demographics of her current seat. Something had to be done to maintain a Black majority, she acknowledged, just not Sen. Carter’s proposal. Conversely, he contended that his amendment to Cortez’s SB1 simply sought to grant Carter Peterson’s district a greater share of Black voters than the current proposed majority-minority redesign. The two argued back-and-forth about the lines on the floor of the Senate for nearly an hour until Carter Peterson triumphed. The Senate finally voted 11-26 against Sen. Carter’s amendment.
Carter Peterson also fought a rear guard action against neighboring GOP State Sen. Cameron Henry, who craved part of her seat also for distinctly family reasons – at least according to her. This fight she lost. Population shifts mean that Henry’s seat must grow, and the Jefferson-based politician proposed including the Tulane and Loyola university area-neighborhoods into his District 9.
His idea was not without precedent. Republican Sen. John Hainkel represented the universities and their environs less than two decades ago. Admittedly, Hainkel’s district stretched from Uptown through Jefferson Parish and up the Causeway to Madisonville and Ponchatoula. It looked odd even by the standards of Louisiana gerrymandering. Henry’s proposal, on the other hand, stood as considerably more modest. An Old Metairie/Old Jefferson-centric Senate seat which encompasses a bit more of Uptown currently hardly ranks as a radical concept. After all, Henry already represents Audubon Park, the Zoo, and the neighborhoods around it all the way up to Jefferson Avenue. He simply suggested including the corresponding neighborhoods on the other side of St. Charles Ave.
Interestingly, Sen. Carter Peterson observed that this Republican’s ambition to take these precincts out of her Senate District 5 might have a more distinct familial motive. Cameron Henry’s sister lives near the universities, and his family has proven to be a highly political lot. After all, his brother Charles Henry succeeded Cameron in his old 82nd District House seat. Political nepotism has precedent in the Henry clan. Could his sister hold senatorial ambitions, Sen. Carter Peterson implied?
It didn’t matter in the end. Cameron Henry won. “Tulane and Loyola will still be economic engines in Orleans Parish,” Henry said during the debate. “They’ll just be represented by someone different than Senator Peterson.” The Senate subsequently voted 29-9 to approve his amendment, putting the universities in Henry’s district.
These arcane debates over shifting neighborhoods have resulted from the previous loss of the major redistricting battle. On February 4, the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee voted to kill Democratic Sen. Ed Price’s Senate Bill 17, which would have increased majority-Black districts in the Senate to 13 from the current 11 – or 28 percent of the entire body rather than 33 percent. (African-Americans comprise 1/3 the population of the State of Louisiana.) On February 10, the entire La. House of Representatives also voted 70-33 to maintain the same status quo. HB1 would keep the current 29 Black majority seats, rather than an increase to 34, or 1/3 majority-minority seats, as was originally sought at the beginning of the current special session.
This article originally published in the February 14, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
