BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Lawmakers sparred at the Capitol Thursday over how the congressional maps should look based on the changing population of the state. Senators took their first look at the maps and continued their debate on the Senate districts.
The Civil Rights Act was analyzed over what exactly it requires in these maps and if the majority-minority district fits within its parameters.
“You cannot draw two minority districts that would be performing,” Sen. Sharon Hewitt said.
That is a key argument Republicans have adopted for the reason behind their congressional maps not including a second majority-minority district despite the growth in the Black population.
“Performance does not mean guarantee, it means opportunity. And each of Senator Fields’ maps the district two and district five give minority voters the opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice,” said Jared Evans, Policy Council for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Sen. Hewitt said that districts with only 53 or 54% voting age minorities could potentially not turn out to vote – but the law only requires the minority districts to be 50% plus one. Senate President Page Cortez also argued that voter turnout in some minority areas is lower thus making it harder to elect the candidate of their choice if they were in a second minority district.
“I think it would be a failure on the part of the legislature to create two minority districts of such low voting age population that you would be at risk of not allowing the minority to elect the candidate of their choice,” Hewitt said.
Some Democratic senators pushed back against that logic stating the voters will come out and with a third of the state population being Black, there needs to be a fair opportunity.
“You can assess how they would have performed in the new districts and predict whether Black voters would have an opportunity, not a guarantee, an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice,” said Michael Pernick, Redistricting Council for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
In the end, none of the maps were voted on to give senators more time to look them over. The senate committee is said to vote on the senate district and congressional maps tomorrow. The House will hold its first committee meeting to look over BESE district maps.