Redistricting in Louisiana after the 2010 census

Note: Redistricting takes place every 10 years after completion of the United States Census. The information here pertains to the 2010 redistricting process. For information on more recent redistricting developments, see this article.

Redistricting in Louisiana

General information

Partisan control: Republican

Process: Legislative

Deadline: April 29, 2011

Total seats

Congress: 6

State Senate: 39

State House: 105

This article details the timeline of redistricting events in Louisiana following the 2010 census. It also provides contextual information about the redistricting process and census information.

Process

See also: State-by-state redistricting procedures

The Louisiana Legislature had full authority over all legislative, judicial, and congressional redistricting. However, the Governor had the authority to veto any redistricting plan for any reason.

The 2011 legislative redistricting meetings began on March 20, 2011.

As court elections were not held until 2012, redistricting Louisiana's Supreme Court and the lower level judicial offices did not occur during the spring 2011 session. That task was placed on the 2012 legislative agenda instead.

The Louisiana Constitution provided authority for redistricting to the Legislature in Section 6 of Article III. If the legislature failed, Section 6 allowed the supreme court to reapportion each house.

Committee assignments

The House and Governmental Affairs Committee and Senate & Governmental Affairs Committee, Louisiana State Senate had jurisdiction over redistricting.

House Committee membership

The House Committee was composed of 11 Republicans, 7 Democrats, and 1 independent.

Richard Gallot, Jr., (D) Chairman M.J. Smiley, Jr., (R) Vicechair Taylor F. Barras, (D) Jared Brossett, (D) Patrick Connick, (R) George Gregory Cromer, (R)

Michael E. Danahay, (D) Herbert B. Dixon, (D) Brett F. Geymann, (R) Cameron Henry, (R) Girod Jackson, III, (D) Rosalind D. Jones, (D)

Nancy Landry, (R) Anthony V. Ligi, (R) Nicholas "Nick" Lorusso, (R) Erich E. Ponti, (R) Stephen E. Pugh, (I) Jerome Richard, (R) Jane H. Smith, (R)

Senate Committee Membership

The Senate Committee was composed of 6 Republicans and 4 Democrats.

Robert Kostelka (R) David Heitmeier (D) Jody Amedee (R) Dan Claitor (R) Jack Donahue (R)

Mike Walsworth (R) Norby Chabert (R) Lydia Jackson (D) Robert Marionneaux (D) Edwin Murray (D)

Additionally, under the legislature's rules, the Speaker and Speaker Pro Tempore were ex officio members of all standing committees, meaning that Republican Jim Tucker and Independent Joel Robideaux were also set to be involved. The Committee adopted rules on January 20, 2011 ahead of redistricting.

Public hearings

A series of nine public hearings, located around the state, began on February 17, 2011, with the first meeting in the north of the state. State Representative Rick Gallot (D) and his Senate counterpoint Bob Kostelka (R), as the chair of the Joint Committee on Government Affairs, hosted the meetings.

In early 2011, legislative staffers formally presented the current maps for all districts set to be redrawn: Congressional, state house and senate, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Public Service Commission, Supreme Court, and the Courts of Appeal.

Redistricting

Figure 2: This map shows the Louisiana House Districts after the 2000 census.

Figure 3: This map shows the Louisiana Senate Districts after the 2000 census.

Overview

The 2011 redistricting effort was set to be led in the state Senate by Republican Bob Kostelka and Democrat David Heitmeier, the chair and vice-chair of the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee. The schedule for redistricting work considered the U.S. Census Bureau's plans for releasing state level data and announced a special session to begin in late March of 2010.

Legally, the state was required to use a dedicated session for redistricting. Before Governor Jindal (R) could call such a session, lawmakers gathered enough petition signatures to call it themselves, which was the first time the legislature had exercised that privilege. Once that was done, the session was announced to sit on March 20, 2011, with a mandate to last as long as April 13, 2011. The regular legislative session was scheduled to convene on April 23, 2011. On top of Congressional and legislative seats, districts for the Public Service Commission, State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, Louisiana Supreme Court, and some judicial offices also came under the special session's portfolio. A minimum of nine regional meetings, to cover the entire state, were scheduled between January and late March, 2011.

Because Louisiana was subject to the Voting Rights Act, the state was required to submit a complete plan to the U.S. Department of Justice and receive approval in time to use that plan in a fall election, with an October 22, 2011 primary already set. These constraints meant Louisiana had one of the United States' tightest schedules for redistricting in 2011. Recognizing this tight schedule, the Census Bureau put Louisiana into the first tier of states to receive its data on February 2, 2011.

Census results

Using numbers provided by the Census Bureau, Louisiana's new 'ideal' state house districts would have 43,174 residents, with a tolerance on either side running from 41,105 to 45,332. Senators would ideally each represent 116,240.

Ideal size for U.S. House seats, which was 638,425 in 2000, increased to 755,562 after the 2010 Census. The state's Supreme Court, which included only seven members and would have the largest districts of all the state's offices, targeted 906,674 as an ideal district size.

Of 105 State House seats, at least 27 needed to be majority-minority.

Metropolitan New Orleans, consisting of seven parishes, dropped back to its 1970 size, losing 11 percent of its population in the decade. The southeast area, centered on Orleans Parish, fell by an even larger 20 percent.

The Florida Parishes were the state's fastest growing region, while northern Louisiana lost population, with 26 of 29 parishes in the north shrinking.

February 2011: State challenged Census figures

Having reviewed the date received from the U.S. Census Bureau, Louisiana state officials and representatives of St. Landry Parish identified what they believed was a substantial error in the Census' work: a possible severe undercount of St. Landry's population. This count discrepancy meant that millions in federal funding was at stake. However, many considered it already too late to have potentially higher population numbers count toward redistricting, which was already underway in the state legislature.

Any state was allowed to appeal Census figures to the Census Bureau up to June 30, 2011. Louisiana was to request a full recount of the area in question, but even advocates of that effort had little hope for a full recount from the Census Bureau, as the Bureau had been reluctant to do so in the past. In the event of a refusal from the Census Bureau, the state would ask the University of Louisiana and Louisiana State University to jointly make a count of St. Landry; those figures would be presented to the federal government along with a petition to accept them instead of the Census numbers.

The Census Bureau admitted that their overall response rate from St. Landry Parish was a disappointing 64 percent, something they suggested was due to lack of cooperation. Parish officials, though, reported mounting complaints from their constituents that they never received a form or any follow-up from Census officials.

Congressional districts in November 2010

Partisan registration and representation by Congressional district, 2010
Congressional district		Republicans	Democrats	Other	District total	Party advantage*	111th Congress	112th Congress
1 (Lake Ponchartrain Shoreline)		171,465	163,678	114,451	449,594	4.76% Republican
2 (New Orleans)		39,629	236,218	85,403	361,250	496.07% Democratic
3 (Southern New Orleans Suburbs)		92,986	218,589	94,203	405,778	135.08% Democratic
4 (Northwestern Louisiana)		116,895	198,365	94,261	409,521	69.70% Democratic
5 (Northeastern and Central Louisiana)		110,271	108,335	87,649	418,782	1.79% Republican
6 (Baton Rouge and Western Florida Parishes)		131,089	217,783	101,709	450,581	66.13% Democratic
7 (Southwestern Louisiana)		112,146	226,149	105,571	443,866	101.66% Democratic
State Totals		774,481	1,481,644	683,247	2,939,372	91.31% Democratic	1 D, 5 R	1 D, 5 R
*The partisan registration advantage was computed as the gap between the two major parties in registered voters.

Congressional redistricting

February 2011: Boustany plan and Landry plans

Rep. Boustany (R-7), presented his plan, which would save his seat and absorb much of the 3rd, in late February 2011. His plan for the other five seats included two large seats splitting Louisiana's northern region - much like the existing 4th and 5th seat - and for New Orleans and Baton Rouge each to anchor a seat.

He won the endorsement of the Vermilion Parish Police Jury in an early speech touting the plan. Boustany's plan would keep Vermilion Parish, Lafayette and Lake Charles intact and in one district. Both he and Landry praised the idea of keeping the coastal area in a single seat for the sake of fishing and land concerns.

Opposing him was fellow Republican Congressman Jeff Landry, the freshman of the delegation. Landry proposed a single coastal district that would span 13 parishes. His proposal derived its justification from the shared culture and economic interests of the Louisiana shore. Backing up Landry were Plaquemine Parish President Billy Nungesser along with parish leadership in Houma and Thibodeaux.

March 2011: Louisiana Family Forum and Harrison Plans

The Louisiana Family Forum (LFF) plan, which was one of the first produced publicly, suggested splitting the predominantly black Orleans Parish in two, combining half of Orleans with the Parishes of St. Tammany and Washington. Under that plan, the other half of Orleans would be paired with southwestern coastal Parishes and coastal Parishes edging up to the Atchafalaya Basin.

By the special redistricting session, the LFF had teamed up with Democratic Senator Elbert Guillory, who switched parties a few years prior, to support what was by then renamed the Demographic Equity Plan.

Rep. Harrison's plan kept Orleans intact and combined it with a portion of East Baton Rouge. That plan satisfied Louisiana's requirement under the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to have at least one majority-black district. The Harrison plan separated Lafayette and Lake Charles, directly clashing with Lafayette Congressman Charles Boustany (R), who openly desired for the two areas to remain in the same District. However, Harrison's proposal imagined a District hugging the culturally homogenous coastline and allowing coastal issues, such as the fishing economy and shoreline erosion, to receive more focus. Residents in the proposed sphere of impact leaned toward keeping their Parishes, such as Lafourche and Terrebonne, intact and passed resolutions to such effect.

In late March 2011, when the state legislature met to draw maps, Harrison presented a map that would put Republican Congressmen Fleming and Alexander, representing the 4th and 5th seats in the north, into a single district.

March 2011: Black Caucus plan

Louisiana's Legislative Black Caucus hired a consultant ahead of the March 20, 2011 special session, during which the legislature redrew borders for its political seats, including the new Congressional districts.

Although Maryland-based Tony Fairfax was explicitly hired to assess Congressional seats, he also looked at ways to draw new minority seats at the state legislative level, with particular attention to the Baton Rouge and Shreveport areas. Fairfax's work was very difficult, as the majority-minority seat at the time, the New Orleans based 2nd District, had to gain 260,000 people before a second such seat could even be considered.

March 2011: Gallot plan

Democrat Rick Gallot put forth a plan that would redraw an entirely new 4th Congressional District. Under Gallot's vision, the parishes of Acadia, Calcasieu, Cameron, Jeff Davis, Lafayette, St. Landry, Vermilion and parts of Evangeline, Iberia and St. Martin would make up a U.S. House seat.

In the state's south, Gallot offered two alternatives, HB3 and HB4. One of these alternatives put Reps. Landry and Boustany in a single district, and one combined Landry's seat with Bill Cassidy's (R) Baton Rouge seat.

Gallot became the key figure in pushing for drawing northern Congressional seats that ran east-west. more or less mirroring the route of I-20. Such a seat would run from the Mississippi to the Texas borders and place the cities of Shreveport and Monroe in a single seat.

Gallot said he heard from numerous civic leaders in those two cities who felt that they share enough of a culture and have so many common interests that placing the two cities into one district would be sensible. However, the majority of the existing Congressional delegation and, as confirmed by his chief of staff, Governor Jindal, believed the historic trend of drawing the state's northern seats to run north-south ought to be preserved. The Congressmen in those two seats, Alexander and Fleming, agreed with Jindal. They said keeping the military bases in Fleming's seat and the agricultural lands in Alexander's seat separate overrided any combined interest of Shreveport and Monroe.

March 2011: Kostelka plan

Republican Senator Bob Kostelka put forward a plan, Senate Bill 2 for the 2011 extraordinary session, that competed with Gallot's. Key to Kostelka's plan was preserving two Congressional seats in northern Louisiana, whereas Gallot would draw a single northern seat combining Shreveport and Monroe. However, Kostelka did find common ground with Gallot by putting Landry and Boustany into a single coastal district.

Kostelka's idea for handling the two seats in the north would have expanded them both south until they picked up enough population to meet the new ideal size. Alexander, Fleming, Cassidy, and Boustany, endorsed the plan, saying northern Louisiana had cultural and economic homogeneity worth preserving.

Within days, Reps. Richmond and Scalise also endorsed the plan, making Landry the only Congressman to still be opposing it. Senator Kostelka then scheduled a March 22, 2011 hearing on the 'consensus plan'.

Kostelka soon added another major backer to his plan, when SB 2 became the only redistricting map at any level that Governor Jindal publicly supported. Congressman Landry, however, challenged that, saying he had spoken to the Governor and that the reality was that Jindal only supported isolated parts of Kostelka's plan. "He told me that he hadn't endorsed Kostelka's plan, but he basically supports any plan that preserves two north Louisiana districts. He said he doesn't advocate splitting up Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes," said Landry. Jindal's press secretary said the only thing the Governor was truly committed to is two northern districts and that Jindal has no opposition to the sort of single coastal district Landry wants.

March 2011: Jackson plan

On Wednesday, March 30, 2011, Independent Representative Michael Jackson, filed HB 42, a Congressional map to create a second minority dominated seat, which meant major realignments in the entire state. Jackson left the Democratic Party a few years prior over complaints that the party failed to consider the political wishes of its black members adequately.

Portions of two dozen parishes, ranging from northern Ouachita and Morehouse southward Baton Rouge and extending west to Rapides and St. Landry, would make up the new seat, one that Jackson admitted he filed on behalf of the Legislative Black Caucus. His new seat would have been 55 percent African-American, 42 percent white, and the remainder constituted by other minorities. The existing minority seat, Cedric Richmond's 2nd District, would come in at about 58.5 percent black and 36.2 percent white. The remaining four seats would all have quite substantial white majorities, approaching 80 percent in some cases.

Ultimately, Jackson's plan died in committee.

April 2011: Tea Party map

On Friday, April 8, 2011, the Tea Party of Louisiana, an organized Tea Party group, offered what it called a consensus map.

April 2011: Bills moved out of committee

With the legislative week ending Friday, April 1, 2011, the House moved three bills out of committee and to debate on the floor:

• HB 6, sponsored by Erich Ponti, a Baton Rouge Republican, would maintain two vertical seats in the state's north. HB 6 passed 15-5.

At the end of the last full day of the session, the Senate committee voted 5-4 to send it to the floor for debate.

• HB 39, backed by Jerome Richard, an Independent from Thibodeaux, would draw two east-west seats in the north, while maintaining separate seats for Congressmen Fleming and Alexander. Alexandria would anchor a central Louisiana seat.. Terrebonne and Lafourche would remain together, but in a seat anchored by Baton Rouge. It passed 10-9, with support from Rick Gallot after his own plan failed.

However, when HB 39 came before the full House, it failed by three votes.

• HB 43, with Republicans George Cromer and Cameron Henry, respectively of Slidell and New Orleans, would have also preserved district lines in the north. Cromer would have split Terrebonne into a seat defined by the Lafayette-Calcasieu area. Lafourche would then wind up sharing a Congressman with East Baton Rouge, a parish four times larger. HB 43 passed 11-8.

All three would have still combined Congressmen Landry and Boustany is a single seat that would have more of the latter's current territory.

Competing bills were killed by the same committee, including Representative Harrison's HB 8 (dead link), which focused on tying Louisiana's sugar cane growing land together.

The Senate moved a single bill, Neil Riser's HB 24. Riser's bill would have split Terrebonne and Lafourche, moving the former into a seat anchored by Lafayette and also including Calcasieu, meaning Terrebonne Parish would be a distant third in the voter rolls.

Lafourche would have been separated, seated in a district where Jefferson Parish would be the dominant voice, followed by St. Tammany and then by Lafourche.

April 2011: Floor voted on maps

When legislators reconvened on Monday, April 4, 2011, the two chambers took diverging paths on approving Congressional maps.

Erich Ponti's HB 6, which initially kept Terrebonne and Lafourche entirely intact and in the same seat, was amended so that most of the two parishes were kept in one seat, but the northern edges of both were included in the Baton Rouge based district. That version passed the House 62-37 on Monday, the 4th.

In the Senate on the same day, Neil Riser's SB 24 was held over on a motion to reconsider in order to allow more time for studying that map's implications. Riser adopted an amendment to his bill that copied much of SB 3's plan for southwest Louisiana and kept almost all of the area intact, save for a portion of Jefferson Davis Parish. Riser said he expected to spend the weekend of April 9 and 10 pulling votes together.

Although legislators with strong Cajun interests continued to press for leaving the area under the representation of a single Congressman, HB 39 by Rep. Richards failed by three votes, the same margin as George Cromer's HB 43. Meanwhile, SB's 3 and 23 were also laid over the for the next day.

The senate committee chose to delay Senator Elbert Guillory and Louisiana Family Forum's plan indefinitely. Speaking publicly in the last days of the special session, Guillory told reporters, "I don't care about the horizontal versus the vertical as long as Acadiana, as long as Cajun Louisiana remains one solid entity." Republican Senator Dan Morrish echoed that, saying of the north-south cultural impasse, ."..we don't share an economy, we don't share hurricanes...."

On Tuesday, April 5, 2011, Riser's plan was defeated 20-19, despite the backing of Bobby Jindal and both northern Congressmen.

Also on the second day of the week, the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee voted on House Speaker Jim Tucker's HB 1, passing it and setting it up for a final vote as early as April 7, 2011.

The upper chamber also approved Lydia Jackson's SB 3 by a 23-15 vote, after Senate President Joel Chaisson introduced a series of amendments to the bill. SB 3 drew an east-west seat in the state's north that allowed greater flexibility for preserving homogeneous areas in the south. Jackson's bill was similar to Rep. Gallot's HB 3, which died 10-9 in committee.

On April 6, 2011, the House Committee voted against SB 3 10-9.

On Tuesday, April 5, 2011, the House committee approved the Senate plan with the Chaisson amendments by a vote of 11-6, sending that bill on to the full House.

On the 11th of April, both chambers passed the other's bills for state level districts. By a margin of 43, the House voted 71-28 to pass SB 1, Senator Joel Chaisson's preferred plan. The Senate responded with a 30-9 passage of Speaker Tucker's HB 1.

April 2011: Congressional pressure to delay maps

Over the weekend of April 9 and 10, a majority of Louisiana's Congressional delegation began pressuring the legislature to delay redrawing their maps until 2012.

Because of the state's staggered schedule for legislative and Congressional elections, it was a possibility to wait until the 2012 session. Excepting Democrat Cedric Richmond and Republican Charles Boustany, Louisiana's U.S. House members were all in favor of waiting on Congressional maps.

Responding to a letter several Congressmen sent him, Governor Jindal questioned pushing back the work:

"I think the lack of a deadline right now is really preventing [lawmakers] from coming to a final deal. Since they know they've got ‘til next year, I think that's also making it a little harder to get to a final decision."

Senate President Pro Tem Joel Robideaux also wrote to Jindal, seconding the idea of delaying Congressional maps:

"The new representatives will be in place and it seems to me they will be more reflective of what the population will be like and they ought to be the guys to decide who the congressmen are and what the congressional districts are shaped like."

Legislators spent April 12 trying to settle on a Congressional plan. Lydia Jackson's plan, SB 3, voted down once before on a 10-9 committee vote, came up again after Jackson requested the committee reconsider it. SB 3 was voted down once again on a 10-9 committee vote, despite Joel Chaisson asking it be sent to full House for debate.

April 2011: Congressional plan passed

Figure 5: This map shows the final, re-engrossed, version of HB 6 outlining Louisiana Congressional Districts after the 2010 census.

The legislature passed a plan that kept their northern Louisiana seats largely intact and added southern land to balance out population among the new six districts. Passing the House 65-34, its sponsor, Erich Ponti, said, "I passed it down to the red zone. It's up to Neil (Sen. Neil Riser, R-Columbia) to take it in." The bill went on to a 25-13 vote in the Senate.

Governor Jindal announced he would sign the plan. Specifically, Evangeline and St. Landry went to northern Congressional seats; the latter being split among three different seats.

On the special session's final day, the Senate committee passed the map in Ponti's HB 6, the only remaining Congressional bill, 5-4. Two votes, one to amend the plan so that Ouachita Parish in the northeast was split, and one to pass the bill out of committee, were tied 4-4, with committee chair Bob Kostelka casting the tie breaker in each.

The full Senate voted 25-13 for the map and the House voted 64-35 for the map. That was an early sign of trouble to come, and the Legislative Black Caucus made clear. In the words, of baton Rouge Democrat Regina Barrow, "By far, this is not over."

On Thursday, April 14, 2011, Governor Jindal signed the House, Senate, and Congressional maps.

House Speaker Jim Tucker hired Washington, D.C.-based and Republican-leaning law firm Holtzman Vogel to attend to the maps when they were sent to the Justice Department. He confirmed that the firm had been retained, on an open-ended contract, to navigate Justice Department approval of the Congressional map and the Senate plan, which was approved by both legislative chambers, through. Normally, the Clerk of the House would take that responsibility but the current clerk, Alfred "Butch" Speer, had advised lawmakers that creating a 30th minority seat, which did not ultimately happen, could be interpreted as Constitutional, setting up a possible conflict on interest.

May 2011: Justice Department review

As the maps moved into the Voting Rights Act compliance stage, federal attorneys for the Justice Department interviewed the lawmakers who had prepared the maps.

The United States Department of Justice received a joint letter from the NAACP, the Legislative Black Caucus, and the Urban League urging him to reject Louisiana's map. The objection was centered on the possibility of a majority-minority seat in Shreveport, something the maps had not done.

Justice Department officials set June 20, 2011 as a tentative date to give decision to Louisiana, which put added pressure on the legislature. Set to adjourn sine die on June 23, 2011, not hearing the outcome for their redistricting plan until the June 20, 2011 would leave the lawmakers no time to revise boundaries. To remedy that, Jim Tucker announced he would host a private conference call to see if there were any way to speed up the process.

June 2011: Other redistricting bills

Lawmakers from Terrebonne and Lafourche introduced a bill to alter the Congressional redistricting map to prevent the two parishes from being split. HB 525, sponsored by Damon Baldone, a Houma Democrat, would reunite the two and place both of them in Bill Cassidy's 3rd Congressional District. It was assigned to the House and Government Affairs Committee, which scheduled debate for June 8, 2011. That day, it was involuntarily deferred; the committee voted against it 13-16.

August 2011: Deparment of Justice approval

On August 1, 2011, Louisiana's Congressional redistricting map received pre-clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice. However, Voting Rights Act approval would not prevent lawsuits challenging the plans.

Legislative redistricting

State population changes left four of eight education districts, two of five public service districts, and five of seven Supreme Court seats more than 10 percent away, either over or under, from the ideal district size. Some state legislative seats also deviated from the ideal size; northern Louisiana seats tended to be above the ideal population mark while southern districts came in below where they should be.

A key question in redrawing legislative seats was that of settling on drawing either compact single-member districts or regional multi-parish seats that would give any single Louisianian multiple lawmakers.

WDSU news report on April 13, 2011 on the end of the special session.

When the special session opened on March 20, 2011, legislators had a three-week window to complete their work. By law, they could not address redistricting during the regular session that began April 23, 2011. Those involved widely agreed on the importance of race - specifically, the importance of preserving majority-minority districts. Given that Louisiana was hoping to win pre-approval from the Justice Department rather than have to make court-ordered changes, legislators looked to push hard to increase the number of majority-minority seats.

In order to allow for the autumn 2011 elections, legislative maps had to be passed and enacted by August 29, 2011.

March 2011: State house redistricting

Figure 4: This map shows the 1B Draft map for Louisiana House Districts after the 2010 census.

Figure 6: This map shows the final, re-engrossed, version of HB 1 outlining Louisiana State House Districts after the 2010 census.

House Speaker Jim Tucker released his first draft of a House map, HB1, on Friday, March 18, 2011, one that proposed trimming the size of the New Orleans delegation from 25 members to 19, a nod to the population loss the region saw. Some of those lost seats would move to the river shore and the areas north of New Orleans. The Speaker's plan also called for at least three sets of incumbents to run against one another.

Tucker's plan grew Louisiana's majority non-white districts from 27 to 29. The Legislative Black Caucus supported having 30 majority-minority seats. Redistricting chair Rick Gallot said the extra district was a 'must' if Louisianans hope to have the maps approved by the Justice Department.

On Wednesday, March 23, 2011, the first vote came, when the Committee on House and Governmental Affairs voted 10-9 to approve an amendment to Tucker's HB 1 offered by Gallot, thereby creating a 30th minority district in the Louisiana state House.

While the 30th seat plan made it out of Committee, Republican Alan Seabaugh sponsored an amendment to remove it from the bill, one that passed 57-46 on a largely partisan vote taken March 28, 2011.

Another amendment offered the same day, from Democrat Chris Roy, required two Republicans in the north to run against one another. It passed 51-48, but was soon followed by a motion to undo, which was set for debate on Tuesday, March 29, 2011.

On that day, the House ultimately passed HB 1, 70-28, providing three new seats, one majority-minority, in the Baton Rouge area. Overall, there were two new majority-minority House seats in Louisiana under the plan

The Senate originally planned to take up HB 1 on Thursday, April 7, 2011, a plan that fell by the wayside when the entire legislature abruptly adjourned until Monday, April 11.

June 2011: DOJ approval

On June 20, 2011, the Department of Justice granted approval to the new House map. However, legal challenges were still possible. This was the first state house plan from to receive pre-clearance from the Department of Justice.

March 2011: State senate Plan

Figure 7: This map shows the Louisiana Senate districts after the 2010 census.

Senate President Joel Chaisson's plan, filed as Senate Bill 1 (dead link), echoed the House plan in that it also suggested cutting New Orleans area Senate seats and moving them north, to parishes that gained population. Chaisson's plan also left open the possibility of drawing regional seats that would span multiple parishes. Majority-minority districts would grow to 11, a gain of one seat over the previous map.

Other Senators submitted plans that had at least the commonality of accepting the need to add another majority-minority district. Robert Marionneaux, Jr, a Livonia Democrat, submitted SB22 (dead link), with the minority district in central Louisiana, much like Chaisson's bill. SB25 (dead link), sponsored by Democrat Joe McPherson, set the minority seat in the River Parishes, south of Baton Rouge, the same area where Chaisson would have a second new minority seat.

On Tuesday, March 29, 2011, Senate Bill 1 passed, 27-12. The plan took seats away from New Orleans, but it also added two new majority black districts, one in the river parishes and one in the north. All eight black Democrats in the Senate voted against it, arguing it wouldn't be enough to survive Justice Department scrutiny.

The pitched debate before the bill came to a vote highlighted several issues that could have come back to derail legislators' plans if the Justice Department disliked the map. Black lawmakers held the new minority seats weren't compact enough to meet VRA guidelines and allegded that Kostelka had drawn the new seats in a manner that protect incumbents. Kostelka admitted he had sought to avoid having incumbents face one another, but not at the expense of VRA-compliance.

June 2011: DOJ approval

The state Senate redistricting map received pre-clearance from the Department of Justice on Wednesday, June 29, 2011. The approval cleared the state to hold its 2011 legislative elections as scheduled.

March 2011: Other districts

Aside from Congressional and legislative seats, several other offices came under the extraordinary session's portfolio. Two of them were dealt with at the end of March 2011.

The Board of Elementary and secondary Education (BESE) and the Public Services Commission (PSC) were each divided into districts across the state. The House passed new maps for both. BESE maps, for eight elected district officers, were drawn under HB 2 and passed the House 97-2. PSC maps passed 99-0. BESE districts made it to the House floor and passed at the end of April. Governor Jindal signed HB 519, for BESE district, on May 31, 2011.

In the 72-hour window before the special session had to adjourn, House Speaker Jim Tucker said that the Louisiana Supreme Court districts wouldn't be handled in 2011:

"We're not going to move the court bills. We could not come to a consensus with the courts or the Senate, so we're going to leave those alone."

Tucker was the only legislator who introduced any bills concerned with redistricting the Courts. The Appellate Courts were last redistricted in 1980. The Supreme Court had been redrawn in 1997. His HB 31 (dead link) and HB 32 (dead link), addressed, respectively, the Courts of Appeal and the State Supreme Court. Both were assigned to the House & Governmental Affairs Committee in the first days of the special session, with no further action.

The BESE map came back up on the final day of the session with two hours left, by which point too many legislators had left in order to resolve a conference committee report on borders of eight particular districts. Jindal said that he would not sign off on it until the second of June. The PSC map passed on Monday, April 11, 2011, and was formally submitted to the Justice Department at the end of May.

Input from elected officials

Figure 1: This map shows the Louisiana Congressional Districts after the 2000 census.

Negotiations on where to cut a seat

Intrastate tensions continued as the debate over whether the state's North or South would absorb the loss of a District continued in the legislature. Although the state was confident in its ability to honor the VRA requirement to have at least one District where a racial minority made up the majority of the population, the various plans that could have met that stipulation still differed significantly.

However, with the publication of the detailed information from the Census Bureau, it became increasingly obvious that the state's South would lose at both the Congressional and legislative levels. Fellow Republicans Jeff Landry and Charles Boustany seemed the most likely candidates to face off in a reduced arena.

The 2nd District, Louisiana's VRA seat and its lone Democratic member in the House of Representatives, was the smallest population district in the United States after detailed numbers came out.

At a more community-focused level, at least one city, Shreveport, questioned the accuracy of the Census count for the city and considered appealing to the Census Bureau after detailed population figures were much lower than anticipated.

Compliance with Voting Rights Act

After the 2010 Census results were announced, Louisiana's minority population was still high - 30 percent of the state's population was black - but they had moved within the state. Prior to Hurricane Katrina, Orleans Parish was home to the largest black population with Jefferson Parish, the city's western suburbs, coming in second.

Going into the 2011 redistricting process, Baton Rouge had moved ahead of both parishes in terms of the percentage of the population identifying as black. The numbers now sat at 59.88 percent black residents of Orleans Parish, 26.90 percent for Jefferson, 46.08 percent for East Baton Rouge, and 37.5 percent for West Baton Rouge.

Two possibilities arose. One had a single district that would encompass the densest concentrations of black voters in Orleans and Baton Rouge parishes, connected by a sliver of territory along the interstate to meet the requirement for continuous districts. The second proposal consisted of two separate districts. The former would have enough black voters to be called a majority-minority district, but bar-bell districts have been previously rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. The latter would allow for two minority-influence districts, yet would leave open legal arguments that the minority population was not high enough.

The second district, covering metropolitan New Orleans and the only seat in Louisiana held by a Democrat at the time, looked safe to retain its shape. As a majority black district, agreeing to leave it intact and draw the other seats around it was a step toward ensuring the Justice Department would sign off on Louisiana's plan.

Role of the Congressional delegation

Just as the Census delivered detailed data sets to Louisiana, the state's Congressional delegation met and agreed upon their own version of a Congressional map, one they shared with state's legislators.

All seven of Louisiana's U.S. House members, set to decrease to six in 2012, theoretically agreed on preserving the 5th District in the state's north-central region, which was the seat held by Louisiana's senior congressman. Complying with the VRA was also high on the priority list. By tradition, the Louisiana House delegation would draw a map and submit it to the state legislature as a starting point. Also traditionally, it is the privilege of the longest-serving congressperson to convene that meeting.

The general theme of the Congressional delegation's plan would place Charles Boustany and Jeff Landry, both Republicans then representing coastal residents in southern Louisiana, into one district, where the more senior Boustany would be slightly favored by the population. Additionally, Jindal did say he would like to see the Congressional delegation prepare and present their own plan for legislative consideration.

Governor Jindal's involvement

Governor Jindal's address at the opening of the extraordinary sesion.

By the end of March 2011, Governor Bobby Jindal was playing an active role in redistricting, publicly expressing preference for Congressional plans that preserved two seats in northern Louisiana and delegating top staff to meet with Republican legislators.

On March 28, 2011, the governor's chief of staff and executive counsel met privately with GOP leadership in a session that participants later described as being dedicated to encouraging Republicans to hang together and avoid drawing maps that would force Republican incumbents to run against one another.

Timmy Teepell, Jindal's chief of staff, backed a House map with 29 rather than 30 minority seats, arguing that diluting black voters to create a new minority district would actually weaken the ability of black voters to impact politics.

The Governor's role took on heightened visibility on April 6, 2011 when Jindal's office released a statement guaranteeing a gubernatorial veto for any plan that did not include two vertical Congressional districts in the state's north, with Monroe and Shreveport each serving as an anchor.

Non-government reports on redistricting

Rose Report

Before either the release of Census data or the 2010 midterms, the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont-McKenna College analyzed Louisiana's Congressional seats, with an eye toward assessing their fate in 2011. At that time, the state's loss of a seat was already widely predicted and so the report paid significant attention to how that loss would be handled. Key findings included:

• Republicans could have been amenable to absorbing part of the liberal 2nd District into the 1st, which is conservative enough to take the new voters and still remain a Republican-leaning seat. In the same scenario, Democrats would prefer adding to the 1st from the moderately conservative 6th, a way to safeguard the 2nd.

• The 2nd was hardest hit by Katrina; demographic changes caused by the population exodus increased the percentage of whites. In order to be VRA complaint, the 2nd could not have expanded north into the 1st, as that would mean picking up even more white residents. It could have, however, expanded into the 3rd or be drawn to include Baton Rouge. Given that Republican Joseph Cao lost the seat in the Republican wave year of 2010, the GOP has little incentive, outside the VRA, to keep the district as it is.

• The 3rd, a conservative rural seat, ousted Democrat Charlie Melancon in 2010. His replacement, freshman Jeff Landry, faced the prospect of spending only one term in Congress if the legislature decided to carve the district up. It lost population and would need to expand to remain a seat. Its borders gave Republicans lots of options to add land if they choose to, but Democrats could only keep the 3rd and increase the number of traditionally Democratic voters if they cut into New Orleans, which observers considered a highly unlikely scenario.

• The 4th, in the state's north, was heavily Republican and surrounded by conservative territory, meaning there was no way to give it a Democratic tilt without completely redrawing the state. It needed to add population, which would have likely come from the 5th or the 6th.

• Northern Louisiana's other seat, the 5th, also needed to pick up population. Theoretically, it could become a Democrat-favoring district, but the need to keep New Orleans intact as a majority-minority district was a practical hindrance. Its size made it very unlikely it will be the district ultimately chopped up to accomplish trimming the congressional delegation.

• The 6th, at the time housing the largest population of any district, covered the capital city of Baton Rouge. The city's population made it a Democratic base, but a Republican still held the seat after 2010. There were ways to redraw the district to favor either party, but Republican ascendancy in Louisiana made picking up territory to the south in the 3rd and becoming a safe red seat the most likely scenario at the outset of the redistricting process.

• The 7th was Charles Boustany's seat, already very Republican and likely to become safe Republican territory for at least a decade. It could have picked up area from the 3rd, 4th, or 5th to accomplish that. The first scenario looked most likely at the beginning of the process, given that Jeff Landry was faring poorly from the beginning in his bid to protect his district.

• Baton Rouge's location meant it could become part of the 3rd, 5th, or 6th Districts.

Public Affairs Research Council report

Public Affairs Research (PAR) followed up its detailed 2009 study on redistricting in Louisiana with a series of recommendations (dead link) for a nonpartisan redistricting committee to take over from the legislature starting in 2020.

The six key recommendations called for:

1. districts drawn with more attention to the state's interests than to protecting incumbents.
2. a transparent and full recorded redistricting process in 2011 with more weight given to public input.
3. established rules to guide the process with no changes made absent a public hearing.
4. all proposed amendments being accompanied by maps showing the proposed impact and published early enough to allow public debate and input.
5. a moratorium on new judgeships until the legislature's Judicial Council can comprehensively review the structure of the State Court of Appeal and the numbers of sitting appellate judges.
6. the legislature preparing a plan for an independent redistricting committee in 2020.

PAR continued pushing for an independent commission in time for the 2021 process as the legislature met in its special session. Advocates for reform dismissed lawmakers who argued the transition would be too difficult by pointing to the 23 states that have some form of independent redistricting. "There are enough states already doing this,” he said. “We don't have to recreate the wheel."

An amendment to the Louisiana Constitution would be needed to take control of the process away from legislators, something PAR turned their attention to after the 2011 legislative session ends.

Council for a Better Louisiana

CABL President Barry Erwin called for an independent redistricting commission very similar to the recommendations of the PAR report.

Agreeing with the CABL was at least one member of the legislature, Republican Senator Dan Claitor, who brought up the idea of moving Louisiana to an independent commission.

Legal issues

November 2011: Number of Congressional districts

Less than a month after winning re-election, Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell began a legal battle to keep Louisiana's seven congressional seats. Under new congressional district plan, a result of national redistricting based on the 2010 census, Louisiana has six seats in Congress - one fewer than it has had for the last 10 years.

On November 14, 2011, Caldwell's office filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court, alleging the census "included illegal foreign nationals along with holders of guest-worker visas and student visas" in it's 2012 national population count. He explained "Louisiana's complaint simply asks the court to require the federal government to re-calculate the 2012 apportionment of U.S. House of Representatives seats based on legal residents, just as the U.S. Constitution requires."

September 2012: Lawsuit against Jindal

In late September 2012, Ron Ceasar, a candidate for US House of Representatives, filed suit against Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) for allegedly conspiring with the state Legislature to dilute minority voting strength in the congressional redistricting plan. The suit sought to temporarily stop the November 6, 2012 congressional elections in districts 3, 4, and 5.

According to the suit, “The governor of Louisiana, personally got involved in the reapportionment of these congressional districts due to conflict of interest for electing and re-electing white Republicans to office.” Jindal's executive council Elizabeth Murrill denounced the move, stating, “This is a frivolous lawsuit. The (U.S.) Justice Department already cleared this plan.”

Timeline

An unusual combination of factors gave Louisiana one of the tightest redistricting schedules in the United States in 2011. As one of the few states to hold odd year state elections, Louisiana had to complete a plan in time for primary and general elections in the same calendar year. The state's Civil Rights history also meant it must get Department of Justice approval on its statewide plan to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act.

For as long as the VRA requirement had been in place, the Justice Department had not accepted a plan from Louisiana on the first try prior to 2011, which increased the pressure to deliver an acceptable redistricting plan in 2011. In recognition of the state's tight schedule, the U.S. Census Bureau put Louisiana at the front of its schedule for distributing detailed information, a date which was set for February 3, 2011.

The state's legislature set its special session for March 2011, convening on the 20th of the month and aiming to wrap up everything within five months. Redistricting could not legally be on the regular session's agenda, and the need to campaign limited the attention legislators could give over the summer and early fall, making the end of the special session on April 13, 2011 a major deadline.

Key dates

Due to the 2011 off-year elections, Louisiana's revised statutes governing election timing came into play, which directly influenced redistricting. The Secretary of State needed to be in receipt of a pre-cleared plan five business days before qualifying began. Qualifying itself had to begin 45 days before the jungle primary, set for October 22, 2011. Thus, May 22, 2011 was the hard deadline.

Louisiana 2010 redistricting timeline
Date	Action
February-March 2011	Public hearings held throughout state.
March 20 - April 13, 2011	Extraordinary joint session of the legislature.
May 2, 2011	Proposed deadline for submission of plans for preclearance.
May 20, 2011	Revised deadline for submission of plans for preclearance.
August 29, 2011	Deadline for Secretary of State to receive notice of preclearance of plans for Legislature for inclusion on fall ballot.
September 6-8, 2011	Qualifying dates for candidates for legislative and BESE offices.
October 22, 2011	Louisiana majority-vote primary.
November 7, 2011	General election.
December 31, 2011	Deadline for state legislature to redistrict itself.
June 27, 2012	Deadline for Secretary of State to receive preclearance of plans for Congressional redistricting.

History

Deviation from Ideal Districts

2000 population deviation
Office		Percentage
Congressional districts		0.04%
State House districts		9.88%
State Senate districts		9.95%
Under federal law, districts could vary from an Ideal District by up to 10%, though the lowest number achievable was preferred. Ideal Districts were computed through simple division of the number of seats for any office into the population at the time of the Census.

See also

• State Legislative and Congressional Redistricting after the 2010 Census
• State-by-state redistricting procedures

External links

Federal government links

• 2010 Census (P.L. 94-171) Summary Files

State government links

• Louisiana House Official Redistricting Timeline
• Louisiana House Redistricting Profile
• Louisiana House Government Affair Committee Meeting Documents
• Louisiana Senate Redistricting Profile
• Louisiana State Redistricting Resources
• Louisiana State Legislature Bill Index for the 2011 Extraordinary Session

Other

• Louisiana House Redistricting on Twitter
• 2012 Louisiana Redistricting Outlook at The Cook Political Report
• Louisiana Public Affairs Research Council Backgrounder on Reapportionment and Redistricting
• Senator Sharon Broom discusses redistricting on March 17, 2011
• The Advancement Project's 2011 Report: Louisiana Redistricting: Rules of Engagement in a Nutshell