Research Associate Matthew Klein contributed to this report.
The Supreme Court’s June decision in Allen v. Milligan mandated an additional Black-majority seat in Alabama, and is on the verge of upending Louisiana’s map as well. Since 2012, Louisiana’s Republican legislators have passed districting plans that pack Black voters into a 61% Black seat snaking from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, locking in a lopsided 5-1 GOP advantage in the delegation despite Black residents making up 33% of the state’s population. Now, it’s likely a federal court will force the creation of an additional Black-majority seat in time for 2024.
In March 2022, Louisiana’s GOP-dominated legislature overrode Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’s veto to pass a status quo, 5-1 plan. But in June 2022, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick struck down the map for violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 after plaintiffs in Robinson v. Ardoin proved it was possible to draw an additional compact Black majority seat. Louisiana Republicans successfully appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay, and the 2022 elections proceeded under the GOP map. But
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