BATON ROUGE — The state Senate overwhelmingly approved a congressional redistricting bill Thursday that will likely result in five white Republicans and one Black Democrat representing the state in Congress.
All sides acknowledged that the bill is going to face court challenges, but after more than three hours of debate, the Senate voted 27-10 in favor of a map that was amended Thursday from the one that had passed the Senate and Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday after an all-night hearing.
Bill sponsor Sen. Jay Morris, R- West Monroe, called the shifts in the amended map “tweaks.”
“It moves a few precincts around,” he said.
Under questioning from some of the lawmakers whose districts were tweaked, he explained that it does move some of East Baton Rouge Parish into District 2 and some of Pointe Coupee Parish into District 6. The Senate passed the amendment by a vote of 26-10.
In discussing the bill, Morris told senators he developed the maps without considering race, but did design the districts to benefit his party.
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“We can draw districts for partisan advantage,” he said.
He said the map generally does protect the representatives who currently hold office, which includes Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
“I did draw it in a way that would help Representative (Troy) Carter maintain his incumbency,” Morris said. “It does not protect Sen. Fields’ district, which was basically the offending district, it appears from the Supreme Court.”
Carter represents District 2. Fields represents District 6.
Sen. Royce Duplessis, D- New Orleans, asked if it would have been possible to draw districts that would pass Supreme Court scrutiny and would still have left the state with the likelihood of two Black Democratic members of Congress.
“I didn’t want to do that because I did want to maximize Republican representation in Congress to the extent I could,” Morris replied.
Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews, D- Monroe, said that a 5-1 map means that Republicans will likely make up 83 percent of the congressional delegation, in spite of only a third of the state being Republican.
The other two thirds are largely Democrats and people who are registered as no party. Jackson-Andrews said the districts don’t give people who are not affiliated with one of the main parties much chance of getting elected anywhere in the state.
“How do we justify that?” she asked.
Morris said the districts are generally split enough between Democrats and Republicans that people not affiliated with either party can have “tremendous influence” within their districts.
Sen. Sam Jenkins, D- Shreveport, asked Morris how a 5-1 map could be considered anything other than a dilution of Black candidates’ ability to get elected.
Morris countered that if they were Republicans, they could still get elected.
Jenkins suggested that the maps are “using partisanship as a coverup for discriminatory practices.”
“If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” he said. “It’s quacking pretty loud.”
Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, D- Lafayette, said efforts to create a system that protects everyone date back to the heroic efforts of the lawmakers who passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
“We stand on those shoulders today,” he said. “And while the vote will be taken shortly, the fight continues.”
Earlier in the day, Sen. Ed Price, D- Gonzales, tried to interest the senate in amending Morris’ map to substitute the plan he had sponsored, but his effort was rejected.
Duplessis said that rejection represented a refusal of senators to acknowledge the overwhelming response of voters who came to two marathon committee hearings and overwhelmingly supported Price’s map.
“That just says this whole thing is one big farce, and to a large extent it is because we already know how everybody’s going to vote,” he said.
The bill now moves to the House of Representatives.
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