Lawmakers advance new map with two majority-Black La. Supreme Court districts
26th February 2024 · 0 Comments
By Greg LaRose
Contributing Writer
(lailluminator.com) — Voters could potentially add a second Black justice to the Louisiana Supreme Court after a legislative committee advanced a map on Wednesday of last week that redraws the state’s seven districts, bringing them in line with federal voting rights provisions.
Attorney General Liz Murrill urged members of the House and Governmental Affairs Committee to adjust the districts to avoid costing the state up to $10 million to fight a federal lawsuit that calls for the changes. If the full Legislature approves the bill with the new map, a settlement in the lawsuit Murrill said was reached last week would go into effect.
Louisiana has historically faced court challenges over its election boundaries, ranging from congressional districts to legislative seats. Black voters have argued their voices have not been fairly represented in maps that legislators have approved.
Lawmakers are handling the court redistricting bill during an ongoing special session focused on crime, held a month after they convened for a redistricting session but failed to approve a new Louisiana Supreme Court map. Murrill and the bill’s author, House Speaker Pro Temp Mike Johnson, R-Pineville, said correcting the court’s racial representation falls within the current session’s parameters because it ultimately impacts criminal justice.
Murrill told lawmakers it was imperative to improve the new map in the special session to hold an election for the new majority-Black seat this fall.
“If we don’t get these lines drawn before May… then we will not be able to implement them before the next elections,” the attorney general said, implying Secretary of State Nancy Landry needed time for the new maps to be reflected on ballots.
Qualifying for fall elections, which would include the Supreme Court’s 2nd District, is July 17-19.
The version the committee approved on Wednesday, February 21 turns the court’s 2nd District from one based in Northwest Louisiana to one that spans from Northeast Louisiana southward into the Baton Rouge area. The new boundaries create a district that is 57 percent Black with a 55 percent Black voting age population.
Justice Scott Crichton, the current 2nd District seatholder on the state Supreme Court, is retiring, creating a vacancy that voters could fill this fall if Johnson’s bill is approved.
The 7th District, currently composed of only Orleans Parish, is currently the state’s only majority-Black seat, which Justice Piper Griffin holds. Its revised boundaries also include a population that’s 57 percent Black with 55 percent Black voters.
Lawmakers from Northwest Louisiana, Jefferson Parish, Baton Rouge and the Bayou Region opposed a map submitted in January because it split their parishes among multiple court districts. Although five of seven justices supported the map, Crichton and Chief Justice John Weimer opposed what they felt were its radical alterations.
Extreme changes are still in store for Northwest Louisiana, which would fall into two new districts in the Johnson proposal. State Sen. Thomas Pressly, R-Shreveport, opposed efforts to make similar changes in January, and a post he made on X Wednesday indicates he feels his region was once again disregarded in the map that advanced from committee.
Official numbers on the racial makeup of the current state Supreme Court districts haven’t been calculated, but three of the districts in the Johnson proposal now have polarized figures. The 1st District would become 73 percent white and 17 percent Black, the 2nd District projects 70 percent white and 20 percent Black and the 6th District 69 percent white and 16 percent Black.
Johnson noted his version of the map split fewer parishes among court districts than one considered in January. Rep. Candace Newell, D-New Orleans, said the parish splits are secondary to the objective of electing another Black justice.
“That is insignificant to the fact we are gaining representation on the state Supreme Court,” said Newell, who is Black.
Lawmakers also don’t have to draw state Supreme Court districts with equal populations. The priority is placed on the quest for fair justice rather than equal representation.
In Johnson’s bill, the total population of the seven districts ranges from 632,579 (1st District) to 696,440 (4th District).
While Murrill urged lawmakers to support the new Louisiana Supreme Court map to avoid legal consequences and costs, she chose, on Tuesday of last week, to intervene on the state’s behalf in a lawsuit that challenges the new congressional districts lawmakers approved in January. A group of white voters and politicians argue their rights are violated by a map that creates a second majority-Black district among the state’s six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The attorney general’s office didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment. The Legislature faced a January 31 deadline to approve the new congressional map or risk having a federal judge redraw those boundaries. That case stemmed from a map the Legislature approved in 2022 that failed to add a second majority-Black district.
This article originally published in the February 26, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
