Lawmakers will return to the state capitol on Tuesday to begin a three week redistricting session to redraw the political boundaries for the state legislature, the U-S House, BESE, the Public Service Commission and Louisiana Supreme Court. The session must end on February 20th and Public Affairs Research Council President Steven Procopio says some of the remapping work will be tricky.
“The state House and Senate seats might not be that difficult, I think the Congressional seats could be quite difficult and then there’s the State Supreme Court which is really, really going to be tough,” said Procopio.
Procopio says there will be serious discussion over whether there should be a second minority-majority Congressional district.
“We have six Congressional districts, but only one has African-American representative and the question is since Louisiana has a population that is basically one-third black should there be two out of those six,” said Procopio.
Procopio says lawmakers can also redraw the lines for the state Supreme Court which have not changed since 1997. Procopio says Louisiana’s population numbers are much different now, so there will likely have to be a major change in the court maps and federal law does not require that Louisiana redraws them.
“It’s not like anybody loses a lawsuit or courts are going to intervene and say you must redraw these if they don’t take action, so given it’s going to be a hard thing to do and it doesn’t have to be done, it’s going to be tough,” said Procopio.
You can read more on PAR’s analysis on the redistrict session here.
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