Louisiana Republicans Cut Black Voting Power With New House Map

NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana Republicans on Friday approved a new congressional map that erodes Black voting power in the state — eliminating a majority-Black district established in 2024 that gave residents there an opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice.

Friday’s move comes one month after the U.S. Supreme Court found that the lines of the dismantled district — Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat, held the seat — rely too much on race. The new map is expected to give Republicans a 5-1 advantage in the state’s U.S. House delegation, at a moment when Republican lawmakers across the South are working to do the same.

“It’s hard for somebody to represent you when they haven’t seen or understood your culture,” Eric Williams, 42, who was born and raised in Opelousas, a city in the district, told Capital B. “I don’t understand how we have no representation that looks like us, that looks like me, that completely understands all that Black people have been going through.”

Opelousas, located in St. Landry Parish, has a population of about 15,000 people, and nearly 40% live in poverty. The city is about 76% Black, and the per capita income per year is just north of $20,000.

Jude Jones, 43, who was born and raised in New Orleans and recently moved back after living in several other major cities for almost a decade, said that he was — and wasn’t — surprised by the approval of the new map.

“I am unsurprised by the underlying racism of the South, of Louisiana, and trying to push out Black voices,” he told Capital B. “I am surprised that there’s still one district left for Black people. … The state is already a hyper-super-Republican majority.”

That other seat is held by U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, who’s been serving since 2021. Jones added that while the situation is “frustrating,” he also doesn’t know what it would look like to fight back.

Cliff Albright, the co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said that this development signals a push to “take us back to the Jim Crow era.” The worst part, he added, is that there are voters — thousands — who have already cast their ballots.

Despite this, Albright emphasized that hope isn’t lost, referencing the marches, protests, and voter activations happening across the country through Freedom Summer 2026, a civic engagement movement that began in Montgomery, Alabama.

“It’s not going to take just one tool — it’s going to take multiple tools in the toolbox because we’re not oppressed by just any one mechanism,” Albright told Capital B. “It includes protests, voting, economic actions, litigation, all of that.”

No matter which route people decide to take, there’s one thing he said is clear: “Putting us back to Jim Crow on voting rights is something that we’re not going to tolerate.”

To give state lawmakers an opportunity to redraw district boundaries following the Supreme Court’s decision, Louisiana delayed primaries that were originally set to take place May 16.

“It’s all about power. It’s all about being afraid that they’re going to lose certain positions,” Williams said, also underscoring that having an additional majority-Black district is about more than just having another seat. “With proper support and representation, we can make certain areas better.”

Eric Holder, the chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and former U.S. attorney general, echoed this anger, condemning the latest development in Louisiana.

“For the better part of a century, Black Louisianans were barred not just from the ballot box but from the halls of Congress,” he said in a statement. “And even now, Louisiana has only had four Black members of Congress since Reconstruction, and that was largely due to the creation of court-mandated maps that protected Black voters and ensured nothing more than their equal access to representation.”

Fields’ district stretched from Shreveport to Baton Rouge.

In a statement, the co-counsel and intervenors in the Louisiana case condemned the winnowing of Black voting power as a “flagrant effort” to consolidate power for some and withhold it from others.

“Nothing in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais compelled the Legislature to forgo procedural norms, forsake community input, devalue traditional redistricting criteria, or push forward a map that aims to roll back hard-won strides towards fair representation,” it said. “But that is exactly what the Legislature did.”

Staff writer Aallyah Wright contributed to this report.

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