Louisiana lawmakers have released a congressional map that favors Republicans | US midterm elections 2026 News

Louisiana lawmakers have passed a new congressional district map designed to help Republicans win seats in the United States House of Representatives.

But in order to do this, the map removes one of the two Black districts, which are represented by Democrats.

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Approval in the Louisiana legislature came on Friday. This follows an April ruling from the US Supreme Court striking down Louisiana’s current state map as a violation of non-discrimination laws because it was drawn to include two black counties.

This decision, in the case of Louisiana v Callais, weakened the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was meant to prohibit discrimination against minorities at the ballot box.

It also escalated a nationwide ban that was fueled by President Donald Trump’s efforts to protect the slim Republican majority in the House. midterm elections. Louisiana is one of several southern states redrawing their maps to support Republicans.

Louisiana Republicans thought about it drawing a map giving the party a shot at winning all six seats in the US House of Representatives. But it would have required more registered Democrats in Republican-held states, which would have offset Republican losses.

Republicans currently hold four of Louisiana’s six seats, and are projected to pick up a fifth with the newly passed map.

It was approved Friday by the Louisiana state Senate by a vote of 28 to 10.

‘Brutal race to the bottom’

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign the new map into law, though threats of more lawsuits surfaced Friday.

The Senate’s half-hour debate revolved around Democrats arguing that the proposed map is racist enough to squeeze too many black voters, who tend to be Democrats, into one district.

Democratic State Senator Royce Duplessis said some southern states, such as South Carolina, refused to redraw their maps during an election year.

He warned that Louisiana was participating in a “vicious, brutal race to the bottom” by participating in the pushback.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Jay Morris, has repeatedly insisted that partisanship, not race, drives new district boundaries.

“I’ve deliberately put more Democrats in District 2 so that the rest of the districts will work better for Republicans,” Morris said at one point.

Morris said he advised mapmakers not to include any type of information or include statistics that they share with lawmakers before the election.

Democratic Senator Sam Jenkins told Morris, “I think it’s a partisan district that’s going to cause us a lot of trouble here.”

“Agree to disagree,” Morris told Jenkins.

More cases are expected in Louisiana

Louisiana is currently using a lower court-ordered map in 2024 to comply with the Voting Rights Act. There is also a second district with a large black population.

But that map was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court responded on April 30 by rejecting it as indiscriminately harassing people.

Landry has postponed the closed primary for the US House scheduled for May 16 to allow the new map to be implemented.

He later signed an executive order opening the US primary and changing the date to November 3 to give Republican lawmakers time to draw up and pass a new map. All people, regardless of party affiliation, will be on the ballot in their district.

The proposed map re-draws the district represented by Democratic Representative Cleo Fields, clustering it around predominantly white areas in the Baton Rouge area and south Louisiana.

It also adds part of Baton Rouge to the Democratic, majority-Black district of New Orleans, represented by Democratic Representative Troy Carter.

More cases are expected on the new map.

Democrats say the proposed map could lead to lawsuits over racial profiling, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Louisiana said Friday it may file a lawsuit, calling the map “a racist hideout.”

“This battle has just begun,” the ACLU branch added.

Meanwhile, the opposition who won the US Supreme Court ruling criticized the congressional map for leaving the majority black district.

A world war on regional lines

In the weeks following the Supreme Court’s decision, some Republican-controlled southern states have seized the weakened Federal Voting Rights Act to redraw their congressional districts.

Meanwhile, Republicans are winning the statewide gubernatorial race, sweeping more House seats than Democrats.

But that doesn’t mean he will win the narrowly divided US House in November.

Republicans think they can pick up as many as 15 seats from the redistricting effort so far, while Democrats think they can pick up six seats from new states in California and Utah.

Meanwhile, a court decision in Wisconsin on Friday could give Democrats a new way to win seats in 2028.

The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court has said it will hear an appeal of a lawsuit filed by business groups seeking to redistrict into Republican-friendly districts. Republicans hold six of the eight seats in the House, but only two are considered competitive.

A three-judge panel dismissed the case in April. The plaintiffs were not seeking a ruling in time for the 2026 election. Instead, they asked the state Supreme Court to send the case back to a lower court to hear their case, which likely won’t happen until 2027.