NDRC Statement on Louisiana’s Congressional Gerrymander Proposal

Washington, D.C. — Today, John Bisognano, President of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), issued the following statement in response to the new congressional gerrymander proposed in the Louisiana State Legislature, which would eliminate one of the state’s two Black-opportunity districts:

“Louisiana Republicans are aiming to discard hundreds of thousands of votes that have already been cast in the state’s ongoing congressional primary elections in order to push a racial gerrymander to satisfy national partisan and special interests. The proposed gerrymander rips away representation for Louisiana’s Black voters, eliminating the state’s hard-fought second Black opportunity district. Black Louisianians deserve equal access to representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, yet this new map intentionally dilutes their opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. 

“Republicans’ race to dismantle the progress in the South that Black citizens fought to achieve throughout history is indisputable proof that the protections afforded by the Voting Rights Act remain necessary today. Republicans in Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and other states aiming to reduce the voting power of people of color may believe they can do so without accountability, but they are mistaken. The people will not allow power-hungry politicians to turn back the clock on our country’s progress. Should Louisiana Republicans move forward with this egregious gerrymander, they can expect continued, fierce resistance.”

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:

Despite the fact that Louisiana has the second-largest Black population in the country, and should have two congressional districts where Black voters have the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice, the Republican legislature has drawn a proposed map that strategically cracks and packs Black voters to dilute their voting power. 

On the proposed gerrymander, Black Louisianians, who make up one-third of the state’s population, will go from having one-third of the state’s congressional districts, where they could meaningfully participate in the electoral process, to just one-sixth of the state’s districts. It disenfranchises nearly 250,000 Black voters by eliminating one of two districts where Black Louisianians had an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice, the sixth congressional district. Under the proposed gerrymander, those Black voters would be split across four majority-White districts: LA-03, LA-04, LA-05, and the new LA-06.  Here are some examples:

District 2: The proposed second district maintains its status as a Black opportunity district by aggressively packing Black voters into it. The map packs nearly 350,000 Black voters from New Orleans to Baton Rouge into the second congressional district, and then cracks apart predominantly Black communities throughout other parts of the state into four different districts.

District 4: In the proposed 4th congressional district, urban Black voters from Shreveport, a majority-Black city and one of Louisiana’s largest, and Black voters from the cities of Coushatta to Natchitoches, a primarily Black region of the state, are lumped into a district with predominantly rural, majority-white communities, such as Beauregard and Allen. These areas consist of remote wetlands and agricultural lands, and their voters have vastly different needs from Shreveport’s urban voters of color. The district stretches along over half of the state’s northern border with Arkansas and stretches down along most of its western border with Texas, all the way to Calcasieu Parish.

District 5: In the proposed fifth congressional district, Black urban voters in Alexandria, a majority-Black city, are drawn into a district that stretches into rural, white communities as far as Washington Parish to the southeast, and East Carroll Parish to the northeast. The district also stretches from the state’s northern border with Arkansas and down most of the state’s border with Mississippi.

District 6: The proposed sixth congressional district includes just a third of its current constituents. The oddly crawfish-claw-shaped district snakes halfway around the proposed second congressional district.  

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