Opening Pandora’s box: Redistricting victory or defeat?
29th January 2024 · 0 Comments
“Politics make strange bedfellows” is an appropriate description arising from federal Judge Shelly Deckert Dick’s court order for Louisiana to create a second majority-minority congressional district. Dick’s order enacted her ruling in Robinson v. Landry, where she found Black voter dilution in the Louisiana Legislature’s 2020 redistricting process.
Indeed, Republican Congressman Garret Graves’ District 6, which will be redrawn into a majority-minority district, represented nearly 800,000 people across south Louisiana. The congressional district includes the Baton Rouge capitol region, which has a 53.32-percent Black or African-American population in 2024 and a white population of 37.23 percent.
Why would Republican Governor Jeff Landry allow a fellow Republican’s seat to be sacrificed? Well, for several reasons.
First, of Louisiana’s six congressional district seats, five are held by white Republicans and one by U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, the lone Black, and Democrat in the delegation, even though Blacks comprise 33.3 percent of Louisiana’s population.
Never mind that whites only comprise 52.2 percent of Louisiana’s population but hold 83 percent of the congressional district seats.
U.S. Representative Troy Carter’s 2nd Congressional District contains nearly all New Orleans and stretches west and north to Baton Rouge. Until last week, it was the only Democratic district in Louisiana, but odds are that a Black Democrat will hold the new majority-minority congressional district.
Secondly, it looks like strange bedfellows came together to oust Graves. The Louisiana Illuminator reported that Graves ran afoul of several Republicans after he didn’t support U.S. Congressman Steve Scalise’s bid for House speaker. The fact that Graves endorsed Stephen Waguespack for governor didn’t sit well with Landry.
Some political insiders say Landry favors State Senator Cleo Fields to represent the new District from Caddo Parish in northwest Louisiana to East Baton Rouge Parish and redraws Graves’ District 6.
The proposed map by Republican State Senator Glen Womack, R-Harrisonburg, is not sitting well with some Democrats. Womack said Sens. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans, and Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, participated in negotiating the bill. Gary Carter is Troy Carter’s nephew and replaced his uncle in the Louisiana Senate once he was elected to Congress.
Under Womack’s proposal, the new Congressional District Six would have a 56.16-percent Black population and a Black voting age population of 53.74 percent. The latest Congress-ional District Two would have a 53.12-percent Black population and a Black voting age population of 51.01 percent.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the original map prefer versions two Democrats – Sen. Ed Price of Gonzales and Rep. Denise Marcelle of Baton Rouge – have put forward. They maintain more compact boundaries and turn Letlow’s 5th Congressional District into a majority-Black one.
Their proposals have the same configurations. The 2nd Congressional District would have a 53.57-percent Black population with a 51.4-percent Black voting age population. In comparison, the 5th District would have a 54.66-percent Black population with a 52.03-percent Black voting age population, according to the La. Illuminator.
However, Republicans refuse to eradicate Republican Congresswoman Julie Letlow’s District. Letlow’s office is based in Monroe, Louisiana, where Blacks are 59.70 percent of the total population.
Yet, caution is needed in any final map that is sent to Governor Landry to sign. Voting rights expert Carl Galmon says the new proposed majority-minority district is gerrymandered, and it’s possible for a white progressive candidate with deep pockets to be elected to that seat.
Time will tell whether this round of redistricting is a victory or defeat for Black Louisianans.
One thing is sure, though, given the facts. As Congressman Carter said recently, “Math is Math.” If that’s true, redrawing congressional maps in Louisiana is just the beginning of the process to provide fundamental voting rights to Blacks. This fight for voting rights has occurred in this state since 1864.
But the jig is up now. The work of former Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the ACLU, the NAACP, the Legal Defense Fund, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the Power Coalition, Together Baton Rouge, Justice and Beyond, VOTE, and other voting rights groups have raised red flags and brought true transparency to the issue of Black voter dilution strategies on the part of Republicans’ specifically via the use of gerrymandered maps.
If math is math, the Louisiana Legislature, state courts, and the Louisiana State Supreme Court must be redistricted with fair, proportional maps.
For nearly two centuries, Blacks have been disenfranchised at the ballot box in Louisiana. The lopsided voter dilution strategy cooked up in the Louisiana Legislature has stood challenges until now.
To his credit, Governor Landry, who Trump endorsed, deserves credit for acknowledging the writing on the wall. He supports five of the seven Louisiana State Supreme Court members who requested a second-majority minority district seat. The seven seats are held by six Republican white men and one Black Democratic woman.
Let’s not start with the number of state judgeships that must be redistricted. As for the Louisiana Legislature, the main culprit behind the excessive use of gerrymandered maps, the entire state House and state Senate must be redistricted. Of 105 state representatives, Blacks comprise 25.7 percent, and whites represent 74.2 percent of the seats. Of 39 Senate seats, Blacks hold 17.9 percent, and whites hold 82 percent.
If math is math and whites alone are 52.2 percent of Louisiana’s population, there’s something very wrong with those calculations.
As we inch closer to fair maps at the ballot box, we must know one thing. If we all don’t vote, it doesn’t mean a thing.
This article originally published in the January 29, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
