WASHINGTON — Politics or race? That is the key question for a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel to decide over the next few weeks in determining whether the latest congressional district map creating a second minority-majority district in Louisiana will be the one used in this fall’s elections.
A dozen plaintiffs seeking to have the maps thrown out argued at a Shreveport hearing last week that race was the sole motivation behind how the maps were drawn and enacted by the Legislature in January.
No, the state countered in defending the maps, the contours of the new district lines linked communities with common interests. But the evidence also showed that part of the rationale for the new maps was to remove Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, probably Gov. Jeff Landry’s most potent political adversary in the dominant Republican Party, in order to protect other Republicans in the delegation.
“If the court finds the map is predominantly political, the map survives. If the court finds that the predominant driver of the design was race, it doesn’t,” said Michael Li, senior counsel at New York’s Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. Li is one of the nation’s leading experts on redistricting, which happens every 10 years, after the national census is taken.
A federal court in Baton Rouge in 2022 told legislators that two of the six congressional districts must include enough minority voters that a Black candidate would have a fighting chance to win an election in a state where a district with White voters in the majority has never chosen a Black congressperson. How that is accomplished exactly has not been decided but could be in the 5th Circuit panel’s decision.
On the panel are 5th Circuit Judge Carl E. Stewart, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton and sits in Shreveport, and U.S. District Judges Judge Robert R. Summerhays and David C. Joseph, both nominated by President Donald Trump and sitting in Lafayette. The panel already has set a May 15 deadline for a decision, so candidates can know the districts they’ll run in for the Nov. 5 election.
The panel could accept the Legislature’s map, which was approved in January; or send state lawmakers back to the drawing board, which would mean representatives would be elected under the same configuration used in the last election; or impose their own map, which probably would be along the lines of alternatives that the Republican-dominated Legislature has rejected.
One of the rejected maps would have created a more compact and more constitutionally defensible minority-majority district, stretching from the predominantly Black neighborhoods of north Baton Rouge up the Mississippi River. But that could have put Rep. Julia Letlow, a White Republican from Start, into a district she would have found difficult to win.
Instead, lawmakers chose a configuration that stretches from north Baton Rouge to include parts of Alexandria, Natchitoches, and Shreveport. If the panel approves that map, and Graves were to run for his current seat, he would face a 56% Black electorate in many parishes he has never before represented.
The state introduced testimony that their objectives were to protect the U.S. House’s two top leaders, both of whom are from Louisiana — Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson. They also wanted to protect Letlow, the delegation’s only woman.
State Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, testified that the enmity between Graves and Gov. Landry is well-known.
“The governor wanted Congressman Graves out,” she testified for intervenors, adding that legislators feared the courts would draw the districts if they didn’t.
Under Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act, when the addition of a minority-majority congressional district is required, race can be a factor, but not the sole criteria. The district also needs to be compact and represent people with similar interests, to the extent possible.
If the Legislature’s maps were driven by politics and not race, the key question then becomes if the new district’s voters share common interests.
Graves says no, and points out that under the Legislature’s map, the Capital region is split between four congresspersons. Which one would address Capital region concerns about transportation, ports, higher education, and other issues? he asks.
“If you have a district that goes from Ascension Parish to Livingston Parish to LSU’s campus to Monroe, which committee do you want to get on?” Graves asked rhetorically in a recent interview. “You’ve lost the focus.”
Community activist Ashley Shelton, who testified at the hearing, pointed out that the Legislature’s map includes a string of communities that have been forgotten for years.
“Clearly, the map was aimed at Garret Graves,” Shelton, the head of the New Orleans-based Power Coalition, said in an interview upon returning from Shreveport. “But this map centers on communities that have never been centered on before. This is an opportunity to bring some life to these communities and make their needs a priority.”