The 2024 election cycle was momentous for Black Louisianans — for the first time in nearly three decades, the state had two majority-Black districts.
Though they make up a third of the state’s population, just one of the state’s six congressional districts was majority-Black under the state’s original post-2020 Census congressional map. Then in 2022, civil rights groups successfully sued the state for violating the Voting Rights Act, and a federal judge ordered Louisiana to redraw its congressional map to include a second majority-Black district.
The state’s Republican-controlled legislature and GOP Gov. Jeff Landry complied, but the newly-drawn 6th District snaked from Baton Rouge all the way to Shreveport. A group of white voters then sued, arguing that the new convoluted district was racially gerrymandered. A lower federal court, divided between two Trump appointees and one Clinton appointee, agreed in a split decision and ordered the state to draw yet another congressional map.
The lower court’s ruling was initially put on hold, since the 2024 election was just months away, leaving no time for the state to redraw the map.
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