In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling on a majority-Black district in Louisiana, multiple Southern Republican states have taken action to swiftly redraw their congressional maps before the midterms — and eliminate Black representation in the process.
On April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana, declaring it unconstitutional to draw up a district on the basis of race. The ruling weakens Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which protected such districts.
Upon the ruling being declared, Republican states looking to follow President Donald Trump’s congressional redistricting order from last year wasted little time.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) suspended the state’s May 16 primary elections for the House the day after the ruling, according to The Hill, extending the date until either July 15 or “such time as determined” by the state legislature.
The legislature is expected to vote on a new map this week, and is expected to eliminate one of (or both) of the state’s two majority-Black U.S. House districts represented by Troy Carter or Cleo Fields.
Fields is the Congressman of the district that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. His victory in the district in 2024 — which is about 54% Black — marked only the second time in nearly 50 years that a Democrat had won there.
“There are very real constitutional problems with stopping an election in progress,” Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School, told the outlet. “I think we haven’t seen the worst of it yet, and I think there are a lot of other states that are feeling enormous amounts of pressure to join the race to the bottom.”
In Alabama, Republicans approved legislation directing the governor to schedule new primary elections this year under a GOP-friendly map. However, the legislation is defunct following a district court injunction requiring that the current map remain in place through 2030, according to The Alabama Reflector. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is currently arguing for the injunction to be lifted.
Elsewhere, Tennessee lawmakers successfully pushed through a new congressional map on May 7, splitting the state’s only majority-Black district in Memphis — represented by Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen — three ways, forcing Black voters out into the neighboring areas. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed the map the following day.
Cohen testified before state lawmakers on May 6 as they were weighing a vote, and claims he aims to continue fighting it following. The Tennessee Democratic Party filed a lawsuit on May 8 to prevent the state from using the new districts until after this year’s elections, per The Hill.
“And just like that, the TN GOP voted to enforce a racial gerrymander of Memphis and strip our city of effective representation for decades,” Cohen wrote in a statement posted to X. “Trump knows he HAS TO rig the game to keep his majority in November. And the TN GOP was willing to go along with it. It’s shameful. Next stop is the courts.”
On May 7, House Republicans in South Carolina voted to extend their legislative calendar and consider redrawing congressional lines in the next session, despite the state primary being less than a month away. Absentee ballots have already been sent out to voters. The extension now moves to the Senate.
Rep. James Clyburn, the legislator’s lone Democrat representing the majority-Black 6th Congressional District, criticized the move.
“Republicans in the South Carolina state legislature began the process of extending their session to allow for the redrawing of the state’s congressional map — with one goal in mind: eliminating the state’s only Democratic House district that is occupied by a Democrat,” Clyburn said in a series of posts on X. “Republicans are trying to break apart South Carolina’s 6th District. Not because voters demanded it, but because Donald Trump requested it. We cannot let them succeed.”
Finally, lawmakers in Mississippi are also holding a special session on May 20 in the state’s Old Capitol Building, following an order from Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R), according to Mississippi Today. Given the building’s history, Black lawmakers are reportedly worried that this will result in the erasure of the state’s only Democratic district in the majority-Black Jackson area.
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