Louisiana advances congressional map with reduced Black representation

The latest: Senate committee members stayed up overnight to hear hours of testimony from residents about the proposals.

• The nearly 10-hour meeting ended around 4:30am Wednesday, Hutchinson writes.
• The full Senate is expected to vote Thursday on the bill, before sending it to a House committee next week.

The big picture: Louisiana currently has six U.S. House districts. Four are majority-white and two are majority-Black.

• Gov. Jeff Landry says a new map is needed before U.S. House races can move forward. He suspended those elections April 30 after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Callais case.
• Lawmakers are racing to approve the new map before the legislative session ends June 1.

Zoom in: The committee debated two proposals overnight.

• The winning proposal in a 4-3 vote was a map (SB 121) from Sen. Jay Morris, a Republican from West Monroe.
• He says it's based on the state's previous map from 2022 and has a majority-Black district that stretches from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. It redraws the others to be majority-white.

The killed option: The other proposal, which was widely supported by residents at the meeting, was a map (SB 407) from Sen. Ed Price, a Democrat from Gonzales.

• It proposed four majority-white districts and two "opportunity" districts that he says would give Black voters a chance to elect candidates of their choice, Hutchinson says.
• The map did not get enough votes to advance.

Behind the scenes: Sen. Sam Jenkins, a Democrat from Shreveport, said lawmakers agreed not to advance a 6-0 map that would eliminate all majority-Black districts, Hutchinson reported.

What's next: The map now goes to the full Senate. If approved, it heads to the state House and then Gov. Jeff Landry.