What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State

On June 6, a federal court struck down the congressional map passed by Louisiana’s Republican-controlled state legislature violates the Voting Rights Act and ordered the state to draw a new map that creates a second predominantly Black seat.

The legislature convened for a special session for the purposes of drawing a map, but it adjourned on June 18 without passing one. As a result, the court will draw its own, which could be unveiled as early as June 29. In the meantime, however, the state has appealed the court’s decision, and the question is now before both the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court. Given both courts’ conservative ideologies, it would not be surprising if one of them put the previous map back in place.

Back on Feb. 18, Louisiana’s Republican-controlled state legislature passed a new congressional map that preserved Louisiana’s old breakdown of five strongly Republican, majority-white seats and one solidly Democratic, majority-Black seat that connects New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed the map, but the legislature overrode his veto on March 30.

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.

According to Edwards, the legislature’s 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, and it was quite possible to draw a second Black seat. 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.