NEWS

Louisiana Senate Advances Bill to Eliminate One of Two Majority-Black Congressional Districts

Red River Radio | By Jeffrey Ferrell,

Published May 14, 2026 at 5:02 PM CDT

Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, questions Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, in the Louisiana Senate chamber on the congressional redistricting map Morris sponsored to eliminate one of Louisiana’s two majority-minority districts in the U.S. House.

After the vote, Louisiana Sen. Royce Duplessis remarked “We are setting our state and our country back more than six decades.” After the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on April 29, several other southern states also began new gerrymandering efforts ahead of the midterms.

As expected, the Louisiana Senate voted Thursday to approve Senate Bill 121, authored by Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe. The measure would drop the number of majority-Black districts in Louisiana from two down to one, stretching from Baton Rouge to New Orleans.
As the Louisiana Illuminator reports, the State Senate voted 27-10, along party lines, to advance SB 121 to the Louisiana House. This latest vote belied the contentious path of this legislation thus far in the process.
Less than two days earlier, a nearly 10-hour marathon hearing, from Tuesday evening into the early morning hours of Wednesday, led to heated debate in the Louisiana Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. The end result would become the first of the two party-line votes of the week for the measure, in this case 4-3.

Senate Bill 121, by Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, draws new boundaries for Louisiana’s congressional districts and most notably dissolves the majority-Black 6th District that U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, currently holds.

Democratic Committee Member Royce Duplessis lamented at the time, “Right now, we don't have the votes in the legislature to stop this from happening, but if... We, we will have our opportunity to speak at the polls, and we just all need to show up and make them, make them feel us."
After Thursday’s vote by the full Senate Duplessis remarked “We are setting our state and our country back more than six decades,” before concluding, “And by doing that, I guess in some people’s view of the world, we are Making America Great Again.”
This newly-proposed congressional map is essentially the same one the Louisiana legislature approved in 2022, Which U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, represented. The map includes Baton Rouge, which current U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, represents in Louisiana’s 6^th Congressional District. Fields already announced last week that if he were forced to run against Carter to remain in Congress, he would not do so.
On April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that District 6 was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. That is the spark which led to further redistricting efforts not only in Louisiana but a number of other states ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The High Court’s decision, weakening Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, has also prompted Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee to seek further gerrymandering.