WWNO News

A legislative commission tasked with researching and recommending a new voting system for Louisiana elections decided Wednesday to delay the final recommendations so members could physically inspect the different systems and machines under consideration.

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.

The Louisiana House of Representatives voted Thursday to approve a congressional map backed by Republican legislative leaders that includes only one majority-Black congressional district, two days after the Louisiana Senate approved a similar measure.

Senate approves congressional map despite Democrats’ and civil rights groups’ opposition and a last-minute revelation that a firm hired by GOP legislative leaders offered input behind closed doors.

The leading proposal from GOP leadership would maintain the current racial makeup of House districts.

A Republican-controlled Senate committee voted down five proposed maps that would’ve created a second majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana, earning sharp criticism from civil rights groups that have been closely watching the process.

In the first vote of the state’s once-in-a-decade redistricting session, a Republican-controlled Senate committee voted down five proposals that would have given Louisiana a second majority-Black congressional district and advanced instead a GOP-backed plan that civil rights groups claim violates federal law.

After three days of silence, Gov. John Bel Edwards has called a Tuesday afternoon press conference to address growing concerns about his handling of the death of Ronald Greene after an Associated Press report revealed that Edwards received a text message about the violent circumstances of the incident just hours after it occurred in 2019.