Lawmakers have just a week left to complete their work on drawing new districts for Congress, the state legislature, courts and more. The special session on redistricting must end next Sunday, the 20th) at 6 PM. The major sticking point is the Legislative Black Caucus’ demand for a second majority-minority congressional district. Political analyst Bernie Pinsonat says, despite fierce debate and chest-beating, Democrat lawmakers are (quote) “finding out elections have consequences”, and they’ve lost a lot of voting strength at the Capitol.
2020 Census data shows Louisiana has about 33-percent black population, so a second majority minority congressional district makes mathematical sense. Pinsonat says Republicans have solid majorities in both chambers, and the approval of maps with only one such district reflects that power. Democrats will likely seek judicial help in overturning the maps. The big question is: will the Governor veto whatever map comes to his desk?
“The Governor is a Democrat. If he doesn’t veto it, that really wouldn’t sit well with the judges becasue the Democratic governor has approved Republican districts. So…I can’t imagine him NOT vetoing it.”
The redistricting session must end by Sunday evening. Pinsonat says time is running out for lawmakers to get their congressional map settled and deal with any opposition.
“I think they were trying to get the congressional re-map done, so that they’d have enough time to challenge the governor’s veto. If that doesn’t happen, of course, they would have to have a veto session.”
Any veto session would have to be called almost immediately after the redistricting session ends, because the regular legislative session is set to being on March 14th.
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