Gov. Jeff Landry signed a new congressional district map into law Friday, hours after Louisiana's Republican-controlled Legislature pushed the plan through the state Senate on a 28-10 party-line vote. The map eliminates one of the state's two majority-Black House districts and is designed to hand the GOP a fifth seat in Louisiana's six-member congressional delegation.
Republicans currently hold four of Louisiana's six U.S. House seats. The new lines would likely boost that to five, a gain that matters in a national environment where the party's House majority remains razor-thin.
The move follows an April 30 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a lower-court-ordered 2024 map as an illegal racial gerrymander. That earlier map had been drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act by creating a second majority-Black district. The high court's decision gave Louisiana's Legislature the opening to start over, and Republicans wasted no time.
Republican state Sen. Jay Morris, the bill's sponsor, was blunt about the map's purpose during floor debate. As the Associated Press reported, Morris told colleagues:
"I purposely put more Democrats into District 2 to make the remaining districts better performing for Republicans."
Morris repeatedly insisted that party affiliation, not race, drove the district boundaries. He said he told map demographers to avoid including any data on race and to exclude those statistics from information shared with lawmakers before the vote.
The practical effect: Democratic U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields' district gets redrawn and clustered around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana. Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, who currently represents a heavily Democratic, majority-Black district based in New Orleans, would see part of Baton Rouge added to his territory. The net result is one safe Democratic seat instead of two, and five districts that tilt Republican.
Republicans had considered an even more aggressive map that would have given the party a shot at all six seats. They settled on the 5-1 configuration, arguing it was safer for the GOP and, notably, better protected U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson from a difficult reelection.
Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins challenged Morris directly on the floor, telling him the new map amounted to something more than partisan line-drawing:
"I think it's a racially gerrymandered district that's going to get us into a lot of trouble here."
Morris' reply was two words: "Agree to disagree."
Democratic state Sen. Royce Duplessis went further, calling Louisiana a participant in a "vicious, vicious race to the bottom." Duplessis pointed out during floor debate that some other Southern states, including South Carolina, had refused to redraw their maps in the middle of an election year.
The ACLU of Louisiana wasted no time signaling a legal fight. The group called the map a "racial gerrymander hiding behind the thin veneer of partisanship" and warned that "this fight is just beginning."
More lawsuits are expected. Whether they arrive in time to change anything before the next election is another question.
The redistricting scramble has already upended Louisiana's 2025 election calendar. Landry postponed the state's closed U.S. House primary, which had been slated for May 16. He then signed a separate law making the primary open, meaning all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, will appear on the ballot for voters in their district, and shifted the date to November 3.
That timeline gives the courts months to weigh in. It also gives the ACLU and other potential plaintiffs a window to file challenges. But the map is now law, and any injunction would require a court to act before the fall.
Louisiana's map is one front in a broader national redistricting battle. Republicans believe they could gain as many as 15 seats through redistricting efforts across multiple states, a number that, if realized, would substantially pad the party's House majority heading into the 2026 midterms. President Trump's allies have pushed to protect that slim majority, and state-level map fights are a central piece of the strategy.
Democrats have their own plays. They believe they could pick up six seats through new districts in California and Utah. But the math still favors the GOP if Republican-led states continue to redraw lines aggressively.
Wisconsin added another wrinkle Friday. The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court said it would hear an appeal of a case seeking to redraw Wisconsin's Republican-friendly congressional districts. A bipartisan coalition of business executives filed the case, which a three-judge panel had dismissed in April. Republicans currently hold six of Wisconsin's eight House seats, and only two are considered competitive.
The Wisconsin plaintiffs were not seeking a ruling in time for the 2026 election. A trial on their claims would likely not take place until 2027, meaning any new map would affect the 2028 cycle at the earliest. Still, the court's decision to hear the case signals that Democrats see redistricting litigation as a long-term avenue to chip away at Republican advantages.
The most telling detail in the Louisiana fight may be Morris' own words. He did not pretend the map was drawn for any reason other than partisan advantage. He said he deliberately packed Democrats into one district to improve Republican performance elsewhere. He instructed demographers to strip racial data from the process, a move designed to insulate the map from Voting Rights Act challenges.
Whether that legal firewall holds is the open question. The Supreme Court struck down the previous map as a racial gerrymander. The ACLU argues this one is the same thing dressed in partisan clothing. Morris says it is a lawful exercise of partisan map-drawing. Courts will decide.
But the political reality is already set. Louisiana's new map gives Republicans a strong path to five of six seats. The primary has been pushed to November. And the state's Democratic delegation, Fields and Carter, faces a fundamentally different landscape than it did a month ago.
Duplessis called it a race to the bottom. Republicans would call it the prerogative of a Legislature elected by Louisiana voters. Both parties have drawn maps to their advantage when they held the pen. The difference is that one side tends to get called out for it far more loudly than the other.
When Democrats redraw lines in Sacramento or Madison, it is called reform. When Republicans do it in Baton Rouge, it is called a gerrymander. The rules haven't changed, just the mapmaker.
