Republican lawmakers are confident the Congressional District map they approved in February is compliant with federal and state laws, despite a federal judge ordering the Legislature to redraw the map because it does not have two majority-Black congressional districts.
“You know this is a process and I expect this order will be appealed to the U.S. 5th Circuit of Appeals and we’ll see what the 5th circuit has to say about that,” said Slidell Senator Sharon Hewitt, who also serves as Chairwoman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.
Governor Edwards has issued the call for a special session to begin on June 15th for legislators to redraw a Congressional district map. Hewitt says a special session may not be needed depending on what the 5th U-S Circuit Court of Appeals says about the map approved by the Legislature. She says time is short as Congressional elections are this fall and other states are in a similar situation.
“And that’s what they are doing in other states like Alabama, is they are going to have their Congressional elections based on a map that the legislature just drew and they’ll litigate the merits of the case after the Congressional elections,” said Hewitt.
Critics of the map approved by the Republican-led Legislature say a second majority-Black congressional district is warranted because one-third of Louisiana’s population is Black, therefore two of the state’s six congressional districts should be majority-minority. But Hewitt says the federal voting rights act says the minority party does not have a right to proportional representation.
“So it says that just because you have a third of the population is minority it does not entitle to a third of the representation, it says that in the voting rights act,” said Hewitt.
Hewitt says the Black population is not concentrated enough to create two majority-Black districts.
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