Eric Holder Statement on Louisiana Legislature Voting to Halve State’s Black Representation in Congress

Washington, D.C. — Today, Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States and Chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), released the following statement in response to the Louisiana legislature passing a new congressional gerrymander that eliminates one of the state’s two Black-opportunity districts:

“It’s said that history does not repeat itself—but the reality is that the present is too often tied to a dark past. For decades before the protections of the Voting Rights Act were put into place, Black voters in Louisiana—and across the South—faced poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses designed to deny them a voice in our democracy. For the better part of a century, Black Louisianans were barred not just from the ballot box but from the halls of Congress. Even now, Louisiana has only had four Black members of Congress since Reconstruction, and that was largely due to the creation of court-mandated maps that protected Black voters and ensured nothing more than their equal access to representation. Today, Republicans in the Louisiana legislature, facilitated by the conservative Supreme Court majority, have erased that hard-fought progress. 

“This reprehensible move by the Republican legislature dilutes the voting power of nearly 250,000 American citizens, halves Black representation in the state, and, unbelievably, interrupts an ongoing election where voters have already cast hundreds of thousands of votes. This map is an affront to all those Louisianans—black and white—who marched in the streets to ensure that all residents had a say at the ballot box. Their historic sacrifice and courage are being trampled upon by the Roberts Court’s unmoored decision to gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. 

“All of this is un-American, immoral, anti-democracy—and this Supreme Court has facilitated it every step of the way.”