On Friday, the Louisiana Legislature passed a new congressional map that formed a second majority Black congressional district.

In November 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that the congressional voting map passed by Louisiana’s Republican-controlled state legislature illegally suppressed the vote of Black Louisianians. 

The new map was approved by the legislature on Jan. 19, following a year-long appeals process and a Supreme Court decision that forced Alabama to produce a new map based on comparable racial discrimination.

Under the previous map, Louisiana had six congressional districts. Five of those districts were majority-white, despite Louisiana being nearly one-third Black.  

A new 6th Congressional District will be drawn as a thin strip through the middle of the state, from Shreveport to Baton Rouge. The percentage of Black voters in Rep. Troy Carter’s district, the second, will drop from 60% to 51%. The 6th Congressional District will now be 53% Black.

Republican Rep. Garret Graves sits in the current 6th Congressional District and appears likely to lose his seat. Graves spoke out against Gov. Jeff Landry as he campaigned for governor last year.

However, this new map protects the heavily Republican districts of the U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and members Clay Higgins and Julia Letlow. According to Conservative Political Action Conference, these representatives are all rated as more conservative than Graves. Of all the Republican members of Congress, Higgins is ranked the 50th most conservative and Johnson is 62nd. Graves is much farther behind at 167th. 

Gov. Landry, a Republican, has expressed support for the map, which targets the state’s least conservative Republican representative. However, as Louisiana’s attorney general from 2016 to 2024, he defended the old map, arguing it did not racially discriminate against Black Louisianians. 

Louisiana’s Supreme Court’s districts were last redrawn 25 years ago. In Louisiana, Supreme Court justices are elected by voters, not appointed by the governor. In a December letter, a majority of the court’s justices asked Landry to take the court’s redrawing into consideration. The justices also called for the creation of a second majority-Black district.