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As Republican members of the Louisiana Legislature begin the process of redrawing the state’s congressional map today, there’s a singular lobbying force hanging over their heads, whether they like it or not: President Donald Trump.
While the House and Senate in the Bayou State are certainly more Trump-friendly, some GOP legislators in Indiana now facing re-election are being opposed by the president because they didn’t deliver on his wishes during similar redistricting efforts last year.
That’s why spending has ballooned into the millions over a set of state Senate seats in Indiana, where Trump promised last year in a post that he would back challengers to “anybody that votes against redistricting, and the success of the Republican Party in D.C.”
To be certain, Louisiana is not alone in this drama left in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to dismantle the Voting Rights Act.
State legislators in Alabama and Tennessee, for example, are also undertaking efforts to reshape Democratic-leaning congressional districts in ways that favor Republican candidates.
Republican lawmakers in Louisiana, in broad strokes, are considering two different maps to replace the overthrown model of two Black majority districts and four GOP-leaning districts. One version would create a single Black majority district and another would create none, leaving the state with a congressional map that would likely be dominated solely by Republicans.
Will Trump favor one or the other, or stay hands off? That’s an important question as lawmakers here commence with mapmaking.
As for what comes next, legal experts are wondering if Louisiana v. Callais leads to more setbacks for minority-elected officials on the state and local levels.
“You are going to see a dismantling of minority opportunity districts on city councils, school boards, county boards [and] in state legislatures,” Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA School of Law, told State Affairs National Reporter Reid Wilson.
That means legislators in Louisiana need not only fear Trump and other voices of influence, but also what may become of their own district lines.
In Wilson’s analysis, the author writes, “When the midterms are in the rearview mirror, some experts expect a new round of redistricting efforts—targeting state legislative seats.”
The Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee was scheduled to begin its first hearing on Louisiana’s new map this morning at 9 a.m.
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
