BATON ROUGE, La. — A major case in Alabama could lead to a remapping of Louisiana's own congressional district maps.
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Alabama's congressional district maps were in direct violation of Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate based on race, color, or membership in certain language groups.
In the 2020 U.S. Census, Louisiana showed that 1/3 of the population is black but civil rights groups argued the state's six congressional district maps do not reflect the state's demographics and in turn can underrepresent and discriminate black votes.
Gov. John Bel. Edwards issued a statement calling for the Louisiana Legislature to draw a second majority African-American congressional district.
Gov. Edwards said: "According to the latest U.S. Census, Louisiana’s voting population is one-third Black, which means that our congressional map of six districts should contain at least two majority African-American districts so long as they can be drawn in a manner that satisfies the legal principles governing redistricting."
Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge spoke to KATC about what this Alabama ruling might mean for the congressional maps. Fields, black voters, and voter advocacy groups are confident that the Alabama ruling will lead to a review of Louisiana's own congressional maps, which can reflect and accurately represent the 32.8 % of the state's population.
"The Alabama case is decided and they're going to issue some directive by Monday so I would think Louisiana is in a good position," said Fields. "I think their will be a second majority-black district and I would think the court is probably going to draw a line."
Rep. Charles Owen, R-Rosepine says his party mapped Louisiana districts in accordance with the law.
"We had a very open and transparent redistricting process when we did this before when we drew these districts the house staff here we had meetings all over the state," said Owen. "It's my appreciation and understanding is that we followed the letter spirit and intent of the law and the districts were drawn and the districts were challenged in court and that is what we are waiting on if we get any more court direction on that."
Advocates for the remapping say they feel it's only fair for the districts to reflect and represent the Louisiana population.
"The Supreme Court says when 30% of the population 6 congressional districts 2 of them need to be minority seats to reflect the population of those people in the state of Louisiana."
Rep. John Stefanski R-Crowley declined an interview with KATC, who led the House GOP's redistricting efforts.
