Louisiana eliminates Black-majority district, redraws map

Louisiana has approved a new congressional map that dismantles one of the state's two majority-Black districts, replacing it with an additional reliably Republican seat. This move, crafted by a bipartisan commission and passed by the state legislature after House revisions, is expected to leave the state with a delegation of five Republicans and just one Democrat—despite Louisiana's population being about one-third Black. The action follows the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in *Allen v. Milligan* that upheld Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act's protections against racial gerrymandering, yet Louisiana's map deliberately dilutes Black voting strength under the guise of partisan advantage. By eliminating a district drawn to give Black voters a fair chance to elect their preferred candidate, the state is violating the spirit—and potentially the letter—of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, all while claiming to merely engage in ordinary partisan gerrymandering. The harm is concrete: Black voters in Louisiana will have significantly less influence in the next Congress, with their political power packed into a single district rather than spread across two where they can form effective coalitions. The alternative is to require independent, nonpartisan redistricting commissions that use racial and demographic data to ensure maps reflect the state's diversity, and to strengthen federal protections against intentional dilution of minority voting strength.