What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State

On March 30, Louisiana’s Republican-controlled state legislature voted to override Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’s veto of the congressional map passed by the legislature on Feb. 18. The new map will preserve the current partisan split of five strongly Republican seats and one solidly Democratic, majority-Black seat that connects New Orleans to Baton Rouge.

Republicans needed a two-thirds majority in both legislative chambers to override, but even with the unanimous support of its caucus, the party would have been two votes short in the House of Representatives. But one Democrat and three independents there joined all 68 Republicans in a 72-31 override vote, and the state Senate followed with a 27-11 party-line vote. Barring a successful challenge to the map in court — which can’t be ruled out — Louisiana now has a new congressional map.

The override vote came after Edwards had vetoed the map on March 9, arguing that the plan didn’t meet the standards of the Voting Rights Act because it had only one majority-Black district even though Louisiana has a population that is about one-third Black. Following the override vote, civil rights groups quickly launched a legal challenge, using such arguments in an effort to get the map thrown out as a racial gerrymander.