BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) 鈥� Louisiana lawmakers passed a new map of congressional districts Friday designed to help Republicans pick up a seat while eliminating one of the state’s two majority-Black House districts, both of which are represented by Democrats.
Approval came after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s current map as an illegal racial gerrymander because it was drawn to include two majority-Black districts, meant to prevent discrimination against minorities at the ballot box.
That decision intensified fueled by President Donald Trump鈥檚 efforts to protect the Republicans鈥� slim House majority in the midterm elections. Louisiana is one of several Southern states now redrawing their maps to help Republicans.
Louisiana Republicans drawing a map giving the party a shot at winning all six of the state鈥檚 U.S. House seats. But that would have required adding more registered Democrats to Republican-held districts, potentially backfiring with GOP losses.
The map approved Friday in a 28-10 state Senate vote reflected Republican arguments that a 5-1 map is safer for the GOP. Republicans currently hold four of Louisiana’s six congressional seats.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign the new map into law, even as threats of more litigation emerged Friday.
A half-hour Senate floor debate revolved around Democrats contending that the proposed map is racially gerrymandered to squeeze more Black voters 鈥� who tend to be registered Democrats 鈥� into a single district.
Democratic state Sen. Royce Duplessis pointed out that some fellow Southern states, such as , had refused to redraw their maps in the middle of an election year, and said Louisiana is participating in a 鈥渧icious, vicious race to the bottom.鈥�
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Jay Morris, repeatedly insisted that party affiliation, not race, drove district boundaries.
鈥淚 purposely put more Democrats into District 2 to make the remaining districts better performing for Republicans,鈥� Morris said at one point.
Morris said he told the map demographers to avoid including any data on race or including those statistics in information shared with lawmakers before the vote.
Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins told Morris, 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 a racially gerrymandered district that’s going to get us into a lot of trouble here.”
鈥淎gree to disagree,鈥� Morris told Jenkins.
Louisiana is currently using a to comply with the Voting Rights Act by including a second district with a majority-Black population.
That map, however, was challenged in court, and the Supreme Court responded on April 30 by striking it down as an illegal racial gerrymander.
the state鈥檚 closed U.S. House primary slated for May 16. He later signed a law making the U.S. primary open and shifted the date to Nov. 3 to allow time for Republican lawmakers to draw and pass a new map. All candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will be on the ballot for voters in their district.
The proposed map redraws Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields’ district, clustering it around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana. It also adds part of Baton Rouge to a heavily Democratic, majority-Black district based in New Orleans currently represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter.
More lawsuits were expected over the new map.
Democrats say the proposed map could draw a legal challenge over racial gerrymandering, and the ACLU of Louisiana suggested Friday that it could sue, calling the map a 鈥渞acial gerrymander hiding behind the thin veneer of partisanship鈥� and warning that “this fight is just beginning.鈥�
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision criticized the Legislature’s map earlier this week for leaving a majority-Black district in place.
In the weeks following the Supreme Court鈥檚 decision, several other Republican-controlled Southern states have seized upon a weakened federal Voting Rights Act to try to redraw their own congressional districts.
So far, Republicans are . But that doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean they will win a narrowly divided U.S. House in November. Republicans think they could gain as many as 15 seats from their so far, while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.
___
Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
___
This story has been corrected to show that Landry ultimately postponed Louisiana’s closed U.S. House primary elections to Nov. 3, not 鈥渓ater this summer鈥� after signing a law making the primary election open.
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
