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      Louisiana must draw new congressional map by mid-January for 2024 elections

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      The Louisiana state legislature has until the middle of January to enact a new congressional map after a federal court ruled that the state’s current map illegally disfranchises Black voters.A conservative federal appeals court in New Orleans issued the deadline on Friday. According to the order, if the state legislature doesn’t pass a new map by the deadline, then a lower district court should conduct a trial and develop a plan for the 2024 elections.Whether the outgoing Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, will call a special session to redraw the political boundaries or whether his elected Republican successor, Jeff Landry – who will be inaugurated on 8 January – will have enough time to call a special redistricting session and meet the court’s deadline has yet to be determined.Black voters in Louisiana represent about one-third of the state’s population, but currently represent a majority in just one out of six congressional districts in the state.Republicans have argued the current map is fair, with Democrats arguing the districts discriminate against Black voters in the state.A lower court in June 2022 struck down Louisiana’s current congressional map. The court ruled that the map violated the Voting Rights Act and ordered a new map to be drawn that includes a second congressional district with a majority of Black voters.The ruling was appealed to the US fifth circuit court of appeal. Black voters in Louisiana pushed for an emergency appeal to expedite the new map drawing before the 2024 election year, though that was rejected in October.A special session of the Louisiana legislature now has until 15 January to decide on a new congressional map. Edwards has yet to call that session, though he has said he plans to do so.“As I have said all along, Louisiana can and should have a congressional map that represents our voting population, which is one-third Black,” Edwards said in a statement on the recent ruling. “This is about simple math, basic fairness, and the rule of law.“With the fifth circuit’s action today, I remain confident that we will have a fair map with two majority Black districts before the congressional elections next year.”US House representative Troy Carter of New Orleans, Louisiana’s sole Black and Democratic member of Congress, said he “sincerely” hopes the state’s legislature will draw a new map with a second majority-Black district. Carter posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, to urge lawmakers to “do the right thing” and said “there is no need to wait for a court to force compliance with clear law”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEdwards leaves office on 8 January, when his elected Republican successor, Jeff Landry, will be inaugurated. If it’s left to Landry to call a special session after his inauguration, the timing will be tricky.The session couldn’t start until seven days after the proclamation is issued, meaning the earliest lawmakers could return to Louisiana’s state house in Baton Rouge is the 15 January deadline.Landry did not immediately comment on Friday. The appellate court’s order does say the district court retains the discretion to grant “limited additional time” if requested.If the legislature refuses to draw a new map, a trial will be held in the district court. Plaintiffs in the case could object to the plan and new map, and the court will determine whether it is compliant under the Voting Rights Act.“The court is to conclude all necessary proceedings in sufficient time to allow at least initial review by this court and for the result to be used for the 2024 Louisiana congressional elections,” the fifth circuit’s court order said. More

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      Speaker Mike Johnson Helped Efforts to Overturn The 2020 Election

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      If Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio was the most prominent public face of the congressional effort to fight the results of the 2020 election, his mentee, the newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, was a silent but pivotal partner.The election on Wednesday of Mr. Johnson, 51, to the post second in line to the presidency has focused new attention on his behind-the-scenes role in trying to overturn the election results on behalf of former President Donald J. Trump.A social conservative, Mr. Johnson played a leading role in recruiting House Republicans to sign a legal brief supporting a lawsuit seeking to overturn the results.In December 2020, Mr. Johnson collected signatures for a legal brief in support of a Texas lawsuit, rooted in baseless claims of widespread election irregularities, that tried to throw out the results in four battleground states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the suit, but not before Mr. Johnson persuaded more than 60 percent of House Republicans to sign onto the effort. He did so by telling them that the initiative had been personally blessed by Mr. Trump, and that the former president was “anxiously awaiting” to see who in Congress would defend him.A constitutional lawyer, Mr. Johnson was also a key architect of Republicans’ objections to certifying Mr. Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021. Many Republicans in Congress relied on his arguments.In 2020, Mr. Johnson embraced Mr. Trump’s wild and false claims of fraud. In a radio interview, he asserted that a software system used for voting was “suspect because it came from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela.”Mr. Johnson also falsely claimed the election was “rigged.”“You know the allegations about these voting machines, some of them being rigged with this software by Dominion, there’s a lot of merit to that,” Mr. Johnson said.No credible evidence has ever emerged to support the conspiracy theories about Dominion and another voting machine firm having helped to ensure Mr. Trump’s defeat. In April, Fox News agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation suit by Dominion over reports broadcast by Fox that Dominion machines were susceptible to hacking and had flipped votes from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden.On the eve of the Jan. 6 votes, Mr. Johnson had honed his arguments undermining the election to be more palatable. He presented colleagues with arguments they could use to oppose the will of the voters without embracing conspiracy theories and the lies of widespread fraud pushed by Mr. Trump. Mr. Johnson instead faulted the way some states had changed voting procedures during the pandemic, saying it was unconstitutional.After a mob of Mr. Trump’s supporters, believing the election was rigged, stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and injured about 150 police officers, Mr. Johnson condemned the violence. But he defended the actions of congressional Republicans in objecting to Mr. Biden’s victory.He wrote a two-page memo of talking points meant to buck up Republicans, and lamented that the violence had almost eclipsed his careful arguments. “Most of the country has also never heard the principled reason,” he wrote.Over a year later, on “Truth Be Told,” the Christian podcast he hosts with his wife, Kelly, Mr. Johnson continued to argue that he and his colleagues had been right to object to the election results.“The slates of electors were produced by a clearly unconstitutional process, period,” he said.Mr. Johnson came to Congress in 2017 with support from the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, though he has never joined the group.In an interview this year, he referred to Mr. Jordan, a co-founder of the Freedom Caucus, as a “very close friend” who “has been a mentor to me since I got here.”Mr. Johnson said Mr. Jordan called him when he was running for office, because “he knew I was a conservative,” contributed money to his campaign and invited him to Washington for a meeting with him and other Freedom Caucus members.“He started providing advice to me,” Mr. Johnson said. “So now we’ve become very close.”In 2020, the two men and their wives traveled to Israel together and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Mr. Johnson has also made a close ally of Mr. Trump, and he served on Mr. Trump’s impeachment defense team.On Nov. 8, 2020, Mr. Johnson was onstage at a northwest Louisiana church speaking about Christianity in America when Mr. Trump called. Mr. Johnson had been in touch with the president’s team on his myriad legal challenges seeking to overturn the results, “to restore the integrity of our election process,” according to a Facebook post by Mr. Johnson recounting the exchange.“We have to keep fighting for that, Mike,” he said Mr. Trump told him.“Indeed we do, sir!” Mr. Johnson said he replied.Karoun Demirjian More

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      The California town that could hold the key to control of the House in 2024

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      When customers come in for a cut and a conversation at Miguel Navarro’s barbershop, there’s one topic they raise more than any other: gas prices.A gallon of regular goes for about $5 in Delano, a farming town in California’s Central Valley where in 1965, grape pickers staged a historic strike over bad pay and working conditions that led to the creation of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union, led by Cesar Chavez. Today, everyone in the city who can afford to do so drives, which means feeling the pain of California’s pump prices, the highest in the nation.“You kind of think about it twice before you go out,” said Navarro as he cut a customer’s hair in his eponymous barbershop on Delano’s Main Street. His shop sits among a strip of tax preparers, taquerias and leather goods stores, in an area that also happens to be some of the most fiercely contested political territory in the nation.The city of nearly 51,000 is in the middle of a California congressional district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, Joe Biden won overwhelming support in 2020, but despite its apparent blue lean, voters have repeatedly sent the Republican David Valadao to be their voice in the House of Representatives over the past decade.Next year, Democrats hope to change that as part of their campaign to seize back control of Congress’s lower chamber, which hinges on flipping 18 districts won by Biden in 2020 that are represented by Republicans like Valadao, a dairy farmer who is one of just two Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump and managed to keep their seats.That battle, which will play out alongside Biden’s re-election campaign and Senate Democrats’ defense of their small majority in the chamber, may well be the easiest for the party to win in 2024.Though the numbers appear to favor Democrats in California’s 22nd congressional district, several hurdles stand between the party and victory. Nearly a year and a month before the general election, the down-ballot races that are crucial to deciding the balance of power in Washington DC are far from the minds of many in Delano.“People here are just living day by day, and if you do not remind them about elections, they might not remember,” said Susana Ortiz, an undocumented grape picker who lives in Delano and has campaigned for Rudy Salas, Valadao’s unsuccessful Democratic opponent in last year’s election.Democrats must gain five seats to win a majority in the House, and Valadao’s district – encompassing dozens of farming communities and half of Bakersfield, California’s ninth most-populous city – is one of 33 targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2024.Beyond campaigning, Democrats are expected to benefit from a supreme court decision that has forced Alabama, and potentially Louisiana, to redraw its congressional map. The party also has a good shot of gaining a seat in New York City’s Long Island suburbs, where voters are reeling after discovering their Republican congressman George Santos is a fabulist who is now facing federal charges.The GOP has its own redistricting advantages, particularly in North Carolina, where new congressional maps could knock at least three Democrats out of their seats. The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting Democratic lawmakers in 37 seats, five of whom represent districts that voted for Trump three years ago.“I think the House is going to come down to redistricting fights, candidate recruitment and, probably, most importantly, the top of the ticket and what that does to down-ballot races,” said David Wasserman, an election analyst who focuses on the chamber at the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.No race has a dynamic quite like the contest to unseat Valadao, whose spokesperson declined to comment. The 46-year-old won election to the California state assembly in 2010, and then to the US House two years later. Valadao defeated successive Democratic challengers in the years that followed, until TJ Cox ousted him in a close election in 2018, a historically good year for the party.Valadao triumphed over Cox two years later. The January 6 attack on the Capitol occurred just as he was to take his seat in the House, and a week after that, Valadao joined nine other Republicans and all Democrats to vote for impeaching Trump.“Based on the facts before me, I have to go with my gut and vote my conscience. I voted to impeach President Trump. His inciting rhetoric was un-American, abhorrent and absolutely an impeachable offense,” Valadao said at the time. The decision ignited a firestorm among Republicans in his Central Valley district.“It was ugly, man. I mean, it was really, really, really ugly,” said James Henderson, a former GOP party chair in Tulare, one of the three counties that make up Valadao’s district. Donors threatened to withhold their funds, but Henderson said arguments that Valadao was uniquely able to hold the vulnerable seat, and crucial to representing the county’s agriculture interests, prevailed.“The alternative is, if you lose this seat, you lose this seat forever,” Henderson said. It was nonetheless close: styling himself as a Trump-aligned conservative, Chris Mathys, a former city councilman in the Central Valley city of Fresno, challenged Valadao in the primary, and came within 1,220 votes of beating him.Mathys was assisted by the House Majority Pac, which was linked to the then Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi and spent $127,000 on television advertisements boosting his candidacy and attacking Valadao, according to the analytic firm AdImpact.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt was one of many instances across the country in which Democratic groups channeled dollars to rightwing Republicans in their primaries, betting that they would be easier to defeat in the general election. Valadao would go on to triumph over state assemblyman Salas, and make an unlikely return to the House.Valadao’s re-election fight is shaping up to be a repeat of what he faced the year prior. Mathys is running again, and has once more put Valadao’s vote against the former president at the center of his campaign. Trump is the current frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, and California Republicans will vote in primaries for both races on the same ballot.“The big issue, clearly, is the impeachment issue. It looms very large. People remember like it was yesterday,” Mathys told the Guardian in an interview. “With President Trump being on the ballot, it’s going to even resonate stronger, because he’ll be on the same ballot that we’re on.”CJ Warnke, the communications director for the House Majority Pac, said the committee would “do whatever it takes” to defeat Valadao and Mathys, but did not say whether that would include another round of television advertisements supporting the latter.Salas is also challenging Valadao again, and another Democrat, the state senator Melissa Hurtado, is in the primary. Salas believes that next year will be when Valadao falls, due to the presidential election driving up turnout in the majority Latino district.“The fight is making sure that people actually get out to the polls, vote, or that they turn in their vote-by-mail ballots,” Salas said in an interview. “That’s what we fell victim to last year and something that we’re hoping to get correct going into 2024.”Then there is the ongoing mess in the House, which could have direct effects on Valadao. He’s referred to Kevin McCarthy, who represents a neighboring district, as a “friend”, and opposed removing him as speaker. Valadao three times voted to elect the Republican Jim Jordan as his replacement, unsuccessfully, but also supports giving the acting speaker, Patrick McHenry, the job’s full powers.Jordan is a rightwing firebrand, and an advocate of Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Wasserman said Valadao’s support for him could undercut the reputation he has built for himself as an “independent-minded farmer”, while the downfall of his ally McCarthy may affect Valadao’s ability to benefit from his fundraising.Delano has a reputation as a pivotal community in Valadao’s district, and winning over its voters may come down to money and messaging.A member of the UFW, Ortiz has for several years campaigned for Salas in the spare time she has when she’s not picking grapes for minimum wage. She knocks on doors in Delano’s sprawling neighborhoods, believing Salas is the kind of politician who can bring solutions for undocumented people like herself: she has not seen her father in Mexico since leaving the country 18 years ago, and her oldest son is also undocumented but, for now, protected from deportation by the legally shaky Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) policy.Among the voters who open their doors for her, disillusionment is high, and there’s one phrase Ortiz hears repeatedly: “I don’t even vote because after, they do not help you.”Meanwhile, as an independent, Navarro, the barber, said he would probably vote for Trump next year, as he had in the past, citing his hope the former president would bring, among other things, lower gas prices.“I think we were a little bit more peaceful with him,” Navarro said. But he’s not sure whom to support for Congress, and would probably go for whichever candidate he hears from the most: “We’re meant to vote for whoever has more to offer.” More

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      Republican victory in Louisiana signals hard-right turn for once bipartisan state

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      When Louisiana’s attorney general, Jeff Landry, won the open gubernatorial primary on 14 October, it not only ended eight years of relatively productive bipartisan control of the state’s government: it marked a hard-right shift in Louisiana’s politics that could set back environmental policy and human and civil rights for decades to come.Landry’s outright victory in the jungle primary – a system unique to Louisiana, in which all voters, regardless of party, vote on all candidates at the local, state and federal levels – shocked voters and pundits in the state alike. Landry was long favored to triumph, but it was expected he would be forced into a runoff. Ultimately, the state’s Democratic party offered no meaningful resistance to Landry’s campaign, and he cruised to a win, capturing more than 50% of the votes cast in a low-turnout race.The morning after the election, Robert Mann, a political science professor at Louisiana State University and a frequent critic of Landry, announced he would be leaving his position. He said he had no confidence the school’s administration would protect him from the changing political headwinds.To outsiders, Mann’s reaction may seem dramatic. Louisianans understood fully: in 2021, Landry used his office to try to pressure LSU into dismissing the professor over his argument that the university needed to require students to test regularly for Covid-19.The incident wasn’t isolated. In February 2021, Landry filed a lawsuit against the Times-Picayune reporter Andrea Gallo over her investigation into sexual misconduct charges against one of his closest aides. Landry ultimately lost his meritless case.As Gallo noted, winning wasn’t necessarily the point.“I think that it sends a very clear message to reporters, and to the public of Louisiana, that if you request documents from the attorney general’s office you better watch out, because you might be subjected to a lawsuit,” Gallo told the US Press Freedom Tracker, a website that documents attacks on media in the United States.In 2022, Landry had a simple message for women in Louisiana who opposed the abortion ban that took effect when the US supreme court eliminated the rights Roe v Wade had once established.“If you don’t like the laws in the state, you can move,” Landry said.Of course, most people in Louisiana – where the median income is just over $27,000 a year – can’t just pick up and leave. Which means they’re all but stuck with Landry as governor for at least four years come January.In his election’s immediate aftermath, Landry moved to shore up his control of an already conservative legislature. Within three days, the state senator Cameron Henry, a hardline conservative and Landry ally, had cleared the field to become his chamber’s next president.While Republicans have controlled both chambers throughout the eight years the outgoing Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, has spent in office, the senate’s leadership in particular has been generally less hardline than either rank-and-file members or Landry.Critically, they have worked with both Edwards and Democratic lawmakers on a host of issues.Landry, of course, is having none of that. As the Times-Picayune also noted when writing about Henry’s ascension, Landry has made it clear in private conversations he wants people loyal to him in key leadership roles.That means he is unlikely to face resistance to many of his policies. For women, Black people, the LGBTQ+ community and others in the hard right’s crosshairs, that’s an ominous possibility.Landry opposes any form of minimum wage and is generally hostile to so-called “welfare net” programs designed to help lower-income and working-class people. He backed a plan to make public juvenile court records public – but only in the state’s predominantly Black parishes.Although that bill died in the senate, it faces a significantly brighter future next year with Landry in the governor’s office.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIndeed, Edwards and his veto pen were able to either stall or beat back entirely a host of measures that could re-materialize.Those include a “don’t say gay” bill banning classroom discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity, anti-drag measures, additional restrictions on access to healthcare for trans people, further criminalization of abortion and contraceptives, and deeper erosion of the state’s barely existent gun control measures.Even the state house member Ray Garofalo’s widely ridiculed bill requiring schools to teach the nonexistent “good” side of slavery could be resurrected.Environmental protections will also be on the chopping block. Landry memorably heckled Barack Obama during the former president’s 2011 State of the Union address, holding up a sign that said “drilling = jobs”. With the petroleum industry still one of Louisiana’s single most powerful forces, areas like Cancer Alley – a stretch along the Mississippi River overrun by refineries and pollution – will probably be especially hard-hit as Republicans roll back the state’s modest pollution controls.“On social welfare issues, we’ll be Florida on steroids,” said JP Morrell, the New Orleans city council president and a former state legislator. Though a Democrat, Morrell’s stint as a state lawmaker saw him successfully move some legislation – and blunt some of his conservative counterparts’ worst bills – in part because he was able to establish working relationships with key Republicans.Morrell contends that will be an even more important skill for Democrats now that Landry is governor and Republicans have a stranglehold on both chambers.But with a supermajority in hand, Republicans won’t necessarily need Democrats. For instance, one area Democrats and Republicans have worked together on during Edwards’s governorship has been the annual spending bills. Edwards’ Republican predecessor, Bobby Jindal, left the state government’s books in shambles thanks to his relentless effort to slash spending on education and social services.Edwards, by contrast, will leave office with a $330m surplus.While memories of Jindal’s disastrous tenure are still fresh in Louisiana’s collective conscience, Landry and most Republican state legislators are budget hawks. In fact, Republicans are already discussing significant changes to the tax code that would reduce what wealthy people and corporations pay – even as they are contemplating a new round of cuts to education and other safety net programs.“It will be like the Jindal years, but worse” if Republicans decide to go that route, Morrell said.That means Democrats, who represent large urban areas like New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport, will be spending whatever political capital they have accumulated simply protecting their communities.Invoking his city’s status as the most culturally relevant on the global stage, Morrell said: “For better or for worse, you have to protect New Orleans from the worst of it. You’re not going to save the rest of the state.” More

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      US supreme court allows delay in redrawing Louisiana map that dilutes Black voters’ power

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      The US supreme court said on Thursday it would not immediately lift a lower court’s order blocking a judge from holding a hearing to consider a new congressional map for Louisiana that increases the power of Black voters. The decision could mean that Black voters in Louisiana will have to vote under a map that has been found to illegally weaken their votes for a second time.The decision, which had no noted dissents, is the latest step in an increasingly complex legal battle over Louisiana’s congressional maps. A federal judge last year ordered the state to redraw its six districts to add a second district where Black voters could elect a candidate of their choice. Black voters currently represent about a third of Louisiana’s population but have a majority in just one district.The US supreme court put that decision on hold while it considered a similar case from Alabama. After the court upheld a ruling requiring Alabama to redraw its maps in June, it allowed the Louisiana case to move forward.In a highly unusual move, a split three-judge panel from the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit issued an order in late September blocking a judge from holding a hearing on a remedial map. The two highly conservative judges in the majority, Edith Jones and James Ho, said the lower judge had not given Louisiana Republicans enough of a chance to defend themselves or prepare a legally compliant map.The challengers in the case immediately appealed to the US supreme court, warning that putting off the hearing could mean that Louisiana might not get a new congressional map until after the 2024 election. Such a ruling would mean that Black voters in the state would have to be subject to two federal elections under maps that illegally weakened their votes.“The writ issued by the panel risks injecting chaos into the 2024 election cycle by leaving in place a preliminary injunction barring use of the map the legislature adopted in 2022, while casting doubt on whether or when a lawful remedial map can be promptly developed and implemented,” lawyers for the challengers wrote.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, part of the liberal wing on the US supreme court, wrote a concurring opinion saying that the court’s decision not to get involved should not be seen as condoning the decision from the fifth circuit panel “in these or similar circumstances”.She also noted that she understood the panel’s ruling to halt proceedings until Louisiana had had an opportunity to draw its own maps. The state, she noted, had conceded in a court filing that it would not draw maps while the case was pending, clearing the lower court to “presumably resume the remedial process” while the full fifth circuit considered an appeal of the case.Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, noted that Louisiana won’t hold its congressional primaries until November 2024, so there should still be plenty of time to hold a full trial on the maps and get new ones in place before then. “The real question is whether any appeals after that trial mean that the redrawing gets put on hold pending appeals,” he wrote in an email.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionStephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, said the supreme court’s ruling made it “somewhat less likely” there would be a new map before 2024, but added: “It’s still a real possibility that there’ll be a new map in time.”In addition to Alabama and Louisiana, observers are closely watching Georgia and Florida, where lawsuits seek to give Black voters a chance to elect their preferred candidate. Because voting in the US south is often racially polarized, any districts designed to give Black voters an opportunity to elect their preferred candidate is likely to benefit Democrats. More

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      Supreme Court Delays Efforts to Redraw Louisiana Voting Map

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      The Louisiana dispute is one of several voting rights cases churning through the courts that challenge a state’s congressional map.The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower-court ruling that delays an effort to redraw Louisiana’s congressional map, prolonging a bitter clash over the representation of Black voters in the state.The order temporarily leaves in place a Republican-drawn map that a federal judge had said diluted the power of Black voters while an appeal moves through the lower courts.Civil rights groups had sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court abruptly canceled a scheduled hearing aimed at drafting a new map for Louisiana. That map was to include two districts in which Black voters represent a large enough share of the population to have the opportunity to select a candidate. The appeals court said that the state legislature should have more time to redraw its own map before a lower court stepped in.The Supreme Court’s order was unsigned, which is typical when the justices rule on emergency applications, and there were no public dissents.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a brief concurring opinion, emphasized that Louisiana should resolve the dispute in time for the 2024 election.In asking the Supreme Court to intervene, the plaintiffs had argued that delays in the case could complicate efforts to instate a new map by the next election, leaving the state with a version that lumps Black voters from different parts of the state into one voting district, diluting their power.By the time the Supreme Court issued its order on Thursday, a hearing date had passed. Another has been set for February.The consolidated cases, Galmon v. Ardoin and Robinson v. Ardoin, are part of a larger fight over redistricting. State lawmakers in the South have contested orders to refashion congressional maps and establish additional districts to bolster Black representation. The outcomes could help tilt control of the House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority.Weeks earlier, the court refused a similar request by Alabama, which had asked the justices to reinstate a map with only one majority-Black district. A lower court had found that Republican lawmakers blatantly disregarded its order to create a second majority-Black district or something “close to it.”At issue in Louisiana is a voting map passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in the winter of 2022. The map carved the state into six districts, with only one majority-Black district, which joined Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the state’s two largest cities. About a third of the population in the state is Black.The case has reached the Supreme Court before.A coalition that included the N.A.A.C.P. Louisiana State Conference, the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice and Louisiana voters sued state officials and said the map unfairly weakened the power of Black voters.A district court, siding with the plaintiffs, temporarily blocked Louisiana from using its map in any upcoming elections. A new map, it said, should include an additional district where Black voters could choose a representative. The court gave the Legislature until June 20, 2022, to sign off on a redrawn map.Louisiana immediately appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, and a three-judge panel unanimously denied the request. The state then asked the Supreme Court to intervene.The Supreme Court paused the case until it ruled in the Alabama case, Allen v. Milligan, which concerned similar questions. That essentially allowed the Republican-drawn map in Louisiana to go into effect during the 2022 election.The court lifted the pause in June after a majority of the justices, in a surprise decision, found Alabama’s map had unfairly undercut the power of Black voters. The justices said the appeals court should review the case before the 2024 elections. More

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      Louisiana professor quits in protest over rightwinger’s victory in governor’s race

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      A prominent professor at Louisiana’s largest public university has said he is resigning after an extremist Republican candidate won the state’s gubernatorial election – a victory some fear could accelerate the already conservative-dominated state’s march into unfettered rightwing governance.Robert Mann, a journalism professor at Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication and a well-known political commentator, said he will step down at the end of the academic year in response to Jeff Landry’s victory in the election to become governor.Landry had previously called for Mann to be disciplined by LSU after the academic criticized him online.“I have this morning informed my dean that I will step down from my position at LSU at the end of the school year,” Mann posted on X.“My reasons are simple: the person who will be governor in January has already asked LSU to fire me. And I have no confidence the leadership of this university would protect the Manship School against a governor’s efforts to punish me and other faculty members.“I’ve seen too much cowardice and appeasement from top LSU officials already. That being the case, it’s clearly best to remove myself from the equation to avoid any harm to the school I love.“I’ll add that I’ve suspected for the past two years it would come to this, so I’ve been making plans for some time. The minute that I knew Landry wanted me fired and was willing to call the [university] president to demand it, I knew there would be dark days for LSU if he won.”Landry won a multi-party – or “jungle” – primary in Louisiana on Saturday with little meaningful resistance from the state’s Democratic party. He is preparing to be sworn in as governor in January after capturing a majority of the votes cast in Saturday’s race.As attorney general, Landry railed against coronavirus vaccine and masking requirements, and measures to address the climate crisis, which he has called “a hoax”.In 2020, he joined with other Republican attorneys general in a lawsuit which attempted to overturn the results of the election that saw Donald Trump lose the presidency to Joe Biden. Landry was endorsed by Trump in the gubernatorial race.Mann – once the communications director for late former Democratic Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco – became the subject of Landry’s ire in 2021 after criticizing the attorney general’s opposition to vaccine mandates.Landry, who sued the Biden administration after it mandated Covid vaccinations for federal contractors, had been opposed to stricter vaccine requirements at LSU. And he sent a representative to a university meeting where vaccines were discussed.In response, Mann tweeted: “Louisiana AG Jeff Landry sending some flunkie to the LSU Faculty Senate meeting today to read a letter attacking Covid vaccines is quite the move from a guy who considers himself ‘pro-life’.”Landry was unhappy with the characterization. He said he had spoken with the LSU president “and expressed my disdain and expectation for accountability”.He added: “This type of disrespect and dishonesty has no place in our society – especially at our flagship university by a professor. I hope LSU takes appropriate action soon.”Neither Landry nor LSU immediately responded to requests for comment.The outgoing Louisiana governor, John Bel Edwards, a centrist Democrat, has used his veto power to prevent some of the most extreme Republican legislation from passing in the state.Edwards issued 319 vetoes in his first seven and a half years as governor, including against a law which would have dropped compulsory school Covid vaccinations and a “don’t say gay” bill similar to the one in Florida, which would have banned teachers from mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools.Landry’s victory means Louisiana will have a Republican governor and legislature, which will be eager to revisit efforts to enact those laws. More

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      Trump-backed Republican Jeff Landry wins Louisiana governor’s race

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      Attorney General Jeff Landry, a rightwing Republican backed by Donald Trump, has won the Louisiana governor’s race, holding off a crowded field of candidates.The win is a major victory for the Republican party as they reclaim the governor’s mansion for the first time in eight years. Landry will replace current governor John Bel Edwards, who was unable to seek re-election due to consecutive term limits.Edwards is the only Democratic governor in the south.“Today’s election says that our state is united,” Landry said during his victory speech on Saturday night. “It’s a wake-up call and it’s a message that everyone should hear loud and clear, that we the people in this state are going to expect more out of our government from here on out.”By garnering more than half of the votes, Landry avoided an expected runoff under the state’s “jungle primary” system. The last time there wasn’t a gubernatorial runoff in Louisiana was in 2011 and 2007, when Bobby Jindal, a Republican, won the state’s top position.The governor-elect, who celebrated with supporters during a watch party in Broussard, Louisiana, described the election as “historic”.Landry, 52, has raised the profile of attorney general since taking office in 2016. He has used his office to champion conservative policy positions.More recently, Landry has been in the spotlight over his involvement and staunch support of Louisiana laws that have drawn much debate, including banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths, the state’s near-total abortion ban that doesn’t have exceptions for cases of rape and incest, and a law restricting youths’ access to “sexually explicit material” in libraries, which opponents fear will target LGBTQ+ books.Landry has repeatedly clashed with Edwards over matters in the state, including LGBTQ rights, state finances and the death penalty. However the Republican has also repeatedly put Louisiana in national fights, including over Joe Biden’s policies that limit oil and gas production and Covid vaccine mandates.Landry spent two years on Capitol Hill, beginning in 2011, where he represented Louisiana’s third US congressional district. Prior to his political career, Landry served 11 years in the Louisiana Army National Guard, was a local police officer, sheriff’s deputy and attorney.Landry has made clear that one of his top priorities as governor would be addressing crime in urban areas. The Republican has pushed a tough-on-crime rhetoric, calling for more “transparency” in the justice system and continuing to support capital punishment. Louisiana has the nation’s second-highest murder rate per capita.Along the campaign trail, Landry faced political attacks from opponents on social media and in interviews, calling him a bully and making accusations of backroom deals to gain support.He also faced scrutiny for skipping all but one of the major-televised debates. More