Louisiana Governor Signs New Congressional Map Erasing Majority-Black District
On May 29, 2026, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry (R) signed a new congressional map into law (Senate Bill 121) that eliminates one of the state's two majority-Black U.S. House districts. The Republican-controlled legislature rushed to pass the new map in a rapid-fire response to the Supreme Court's landmark April 29, 2026 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down the state's previous two-district map and significantly weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
The newly enacted "5-1 map" reduces the number of majority-Black districts from two to one, effectively erasing the 6th Congressional District (currently represented by Democrat Cleo Fields) and converting it into a safe Republican seat. During legislative debate, Republican sponsors openly acknowledged that the map was drawn to pack Democratic voters into a single district (District 2) to bolster Republican performance across the rest of the state. They defended the map by citing the Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause—which held that partisan gerrymandering is a nonjusticiable political question—and arguing that the map's design was driven purely by partisan, rather than racial, considerations.
This legislative maneuver is a direct consequence of the Callais decision, which held that court-ordered remedial maps must accommodate a state's "political goals" and made it far more difficult to challenge maps under the VRA. The Louisiana redraw, combined with the Supreme Court's June 2, 2026 order in Supreme Court Reinstates Alabama's Struck Congressional Map for 2026 Midterms, underscores a coordinated post-Callais wave across Southern states to dismantle minority-majority districts and consolidate Republican control over the U.S. House of Representatives ahead of the 2026 midterms.