Louisiana Passes New Congressional Map, Eliminates Black-Majority District

The Louisiana state legislature passed a new Congressional map on Friday, eliminating a black-majority district.

The new map, which gives Republicans an advantage in five of six House sets in the upcoming midterms, was passed by a vote of 28-10 in the Republican-led Senate.

The map eliminates a black-majority district that ran from Shreveport to Baton Rouge and also adjusts district lines around New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Republican Governor Jeff Landry is expected to sign the bill.

BREAKING: The Louisiana House has overwhelmingly passed the state’s updated Congressional maps in a 66-35 vote, eliminating a Democrat-held district and shifting the delegation to 5 Republicans and 1 Democrat. pic.twitter.com/PjLsquPuy9

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 28, 2026

Lawmakers in the state began redistricting after the US Supreme Court ruled at the end of April that race could not be used as the primary factor when drawing boundaries for the state’s electoral districts.

As a result of the decision, Landry issued an executive order that suspended the state’s primary elections for its Congressional districts, so their boundaries could be redrawn.

Democrats reacted furiously to the map.

State Rep. Kyle Green said, ““The distinction between partisan gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering is a distinction without a difference.”

The new map was put forward by state Rep. Beau Beaullieu, who said “partisan advantages were a strong factor.”

Under normal circumstances, Congressional maps are redrawn every ten years, after the US census.

The Supreme Court’s majority vote against a map that created a second supermajority black district in Louisiana has also prompted lawmakers in Alabama and Tennessee to convene special sessions to examine the boundaries of voting districts.

The 6-3 majority decision was written by Justice Samuel Alito.

“Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 … was designed to enforce the Constitution—not collide with it,” he wrote.

“Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s [Section 2] precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”

Compliance with Section 2 can “provide a compelling reason for race-based districting,” but the section “does not impose liability at odds with the Constitution, and it should not have imposed liability on Louisiana for its 2022 map,” he continued, referring to the second black-supermajority district as “an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

Harmeet Dhillon, assistant US attorney general for civil rights, welcomed the opinion, saying that ruling was a “big day in constitutional law.”

The Voting Rights Act “remains intact, but to protect Americans AGAINST discrimination rather than requiring it,” she wrote on X.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, president of the National Action Network, said the decision is “a bullet in the heart of the voting rights movement.”

“The Supreme Court has not just weakened a law, it has humiliated and dismantled the life’s work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., [former civil rights activist and congressman] John Lewis, and every man and woman who marched, bled, and died for Black Americans to have an equal voice at the ballot box.”