Redistricting

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday lifted its hold in a Louisiana redistricting case that could bolster Black voting power in the state. Now lawmakers and officials await an official decision from the appeals court that could impact the 2024 congressional elections.

The East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council approved a redistricting proposal Wednesday expected to preserve the racial and partisan makeup of the Council despite recent census data showing that changing demographics in the parish warranted a new configuration.

The United States Supreme Court intervened in the legal battle over Louisiana’s disputed congressional redistricting proposals Tuesday, pausing a federal civil rights lawsuit and ordering the state to use its controversial status-quo district maps when voters head to the polls this November.

With Saturday’s action, state lawmakers have ceded the responsibility of drawing the congressional districts the state will use for the next ten years to the courts.

A coalition of civil rights groups led by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and ACLU filed a lawsuit against the state of Louisiana Monday over its newly-passed district maps for the state Senate and House of Representatives, making good on a promise to sue the state for advancing redistricting proposals that failed to increase minority representation.

With the start of the 2022 regular session just days away, state legislative leaders said they may have the votes needed to execute the state’s first veto override in nearly 30 years to force their controversial congressional redistricting proposal into law.

Gov. John Bel Edwards vetoed the proposed Congressional maps passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature last month after lawmakers failed to create a second majority-Black district, according to a release from his office Wednesday.

After weeks of debate, Republican state lawmakers ended Louisiana’s redistricting session by pushing through new congressional and state legislative maps that did not increase minority representation, despite Democrats’ and civil rights groups' claims that failing to do so could violate federal law.

A surprise bipartisan effort to redraw Louisiana’s nearly 25-year-old state Supreme Court map and bring more minority representation to the bench died on the House floor Wednesday after the chamber’s Republican majority tabled the bill, prematurely suspending debate and preventing a vote.

After weeks of fiery debate, Louisiana lawmakers in the House and Senate advanced proposals to redraw their own legislative districts Monday without meaningfully increasing the number of majority-Black districts in the state legislature.