By Avery White, Gracie Thomas and Sheridan White | LSU Manship School News Service
BATON ROUGE – A bill eliminating one of Louisiana’s two majority-Democratic districts advanced from a Senate committee on a 4-3 vote early Wednesday morning following more than nine hours of overnight testimony, setting the stage for Republican voting majorities in five of the state’s six congressional districts.
The vote, which came at 4:25 a.m. Wednesday amid a packed hearing room filled with bleary-eyed participants, is the next step in a tense redistricting battle following a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on April 29 declaring one of Louisiana’s two Democratic districts unconstitutional for racial gerrymandering.
The 5-1 map created by Senate Bill 121, authored by Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, was one of two presented to the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee at a hearing that stretched from 7 p.m. Tuesday into Wednesday morning. The other bill, SB 407 by Sen. Edward Price, D-Gonzales, which failed on a 4-3 vote, would have maintained two Democratic-majority districts.
“We’re a democracy, and democracy rules,” Morris said, explaining why Republicans had the power under the Supreme Court ruling to establish the new districts. “The Greeks invented it, and that means majority rules. If the minority doesn’t like it, I understand they don’t like it.”
The advanced map would create a lone majority-Democratic district – the new 2nd District – that would stretch from New Orleans, north through the River Parishes and into parts of Baton Rouge. That would possibly pit the state’s two Black congressmen, U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields and U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, against each other.
The winding shape of District 2 drew criticism from Democratic senators.
“This 5-1 map is a political power grab,” said Sen. Sam Jenkins, D-Shreveport. “We’ve got a packing issue going on here. You’re minimizing opportunity (for Democrats) in the other five districts.”
“Someone mentioned earlier about (the map) passing the eyeball test,” Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, suggested to Morris. “In your opinion, does this pass the eyeball test or does it look like some of the maps that have been rejected?”
“Absolutely (it passes),” Morris said, “particularly compared to the (2024) map, which had the snake running from Shreveport almost all the way to New Orleans.”
The map shifts the focus of redistricting from “race” to “partisanship,” taking into account the percentage of registered voters, rather than racial demographics.
One person testified in support of the approved bill as compared to the five hours of testimony in support of Price’s killed bill.
Louisiana’s existing 4-2 map – featuring two majority-Black districts based on the state’s 33% Black voting population – was passed by the Republican-dominated Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jeff Landry in January 2024 to comply with court orders regarding the Voting Rights Act. Fields was a key figure in the 2024 negotiations and was ultimately elected to the new congressional district created by that map.
Lindsay “Rubia” Garcia, a Democratic candidate in the current 5th District, said she supported SB 407 “even though it cuts me out of my own district.”
“I will use every avenue at my disposal to flip your seats,” Garcia warned the committee’s Republicans. “People will be watching. When we come back, we will come for your seats, whether you want to hear it or not.”
Tuesday’s meeting followed a contentious public hearing last week that lasted more than eight hours, with hundreds of people in support and opposition flooding the hallways protesting the proposed changes.
Tensions also boiled inside the committee meeting as recess was called twice by the panel chairman, Rep. Caleb Kleinpeter, R-Port Allen, after Sen. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans, implied Morris’ legislative work was racist. A verbal altercation between Morris and those sitting behind him ensued shortly after when he told them to “shut up” while leaving the committee room.
After the massive turnout at Friday’s public hearing, the Senate committee rooms’ hallway was restricted to organized lines into the meeting room as compared to the crowds gathered last week.
Carter made the decision to take a leave of absence from the committee early Tuesday. Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, took his place on the committee.
“For the betterment of the Committee, and in order to help restore the decorum and focus that this moment demands, I’ve taken a voluntary leave of absence from the Senate Government & Affairs Committee,” Carter said in a statement. “Now is the time for clarity and purpose. We cannot afford distractions when the stakes are this high for our democracy, our representation, and the people we serve.”
Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie noted the decision to leave the committee was fully Carter’s own.
“He needed some time to reflect on, ‘OK, is this the committee I want to be on? If every time I do it, I go too far, am I serving my constituents well by doing this, by going that far or not?’” Henry said.
Though the Supreme Court decision did not require an immediate redrawing of the congressional map, Landy suspended primary elections for the U.S. House after the secretary of state’s office declared a state of emergency. Intended to give time for the Legislature to redraw the map, this decision came only weeks before the May 16 election and days before early voting began.
Although absentee voting had already begun – more than 45,000 ballots have been cast – Landry said ballots in the U.S. House races would not be counted.
Carter, Fields and former representatives Cedric Richmond and William Jefferson testified Friday in support of Price’s 4-2 map configuration.
“A Republic weakens when citizens begin to believe the system is rigged against them,” Carter said. “Today, here in Louisiana, we’re being tested, and the whole world is watching. The question before us is not merely about lines on a map; the question before us is whether we will honor the principle that every citizen deserves equal protection of the law.”
The bill will advance to the Senate floor Thursday for debate.