A Louisiana legislative committee advanced a congressional redistricting plan Thursday with two majority-Black districts after making substantial changes to the original version of the proposal. 

The House and Governmental Affairs Committee approved the Senate Bill 8 by Sen. Glen Womack, R-Harrisonburg, on a 14-1 vote after adopting the amendments without objection. The alterations include splitting East Baton Rouge parish into three congressional districts, which led to the lone vote against the bill from Rep. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge. 

Rep. Les Farnum, R-Sulphur, brought forward the amendments, saying his primary goal was to keep Calcasieu Parish in a single congressional district. In order to do so, he had to take voters from East Baton Rouge Parish and move them into the 3rd Congressional District, currently held by St. Landry Parish-based U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins. 

If the amended plan is enacted, Higgins would represent voters in the heart of the Capital City, including parts of the Garden District and neighborhoods around the LSU lakes. 

The shape of the new majority-Black 6th Congressional District is largely maintained, slashing diagonally across the center of the state from Caddo Parish to a section of East Baton Rouge Parish. Farnum’s revisions make the new 6th District less compact but slightly increases its Black population along with the count in the 2nd District, which is already majority Black. 

Farnum’s plan received substantial pushback from Marcelle, who objected to Farnum keeping his home parish in a single district while carving up East Baton Rouge Parish and the 3rd, 6th and 5th districts, the latter represented by U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Monroe. 

“I’m not voting for any map that has Baton Rouge split three ways because that’s insane. It’s insane,” Marcelle said. 

Marcelle briefly left the committee room and was not present to object to the adoption of the amendments, although she later said she had intended to object.  

The committee later rejected amendments Marcelle put forward that plaintiffs in the lawsuit Robinson v. Landry prefer. They have sued to block the implementation of a congressional district map the legislature approved in 2022 that has only one majority-Black district. U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, an appointee of former President Barack Obama who is presiding over the case, has given lawmakers until Jan. 31 to redraw the lines to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

In December, judges with the 5th Circuit denied an appeal from Republican state officials, the defendants in the lawsuit before Dick, to end the case. The U.S. Supreme Court had previously declined to intervene in the matter. 

If the legislature approves a congressional map before its special session ends Tuesday, the Robinson plaintiffs have the option of accepting it and letting it become law. If they reject the new boundaries, the map would replace the one being litigated. If the legislature does not approve a map, a trial on the merits of the 2022 version will occur, which would likely result in Dick redrawing the boundaries. 

Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis, D-Baton Rouge, is among the Black voters who are plaintiffs in the case. He said the Farnum amendment was unnecessary but feels his fellow plaintiffs would support the plan if the two majority-Black districts meet Voting Rights Act standards. 

Some Republicans have encouraged lawmakers to reject a map with two majority-Black districts, including U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and former state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, who chaired the Senate committee in 2022 that advanced the single Black district congressional plan. Both have suggested the federal court trial for the map from two years ago should move forward, potentially leading to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.  

Reluctant Republicans in the legislature are moving forward with Womack’s map because it has support from Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who has urged lawmakers to approve a map with two majority-Black districts. 

A spokesperson for Landry has not yet responded when asked whether Landry will support the map with Farnum’s amendments. Womack did not oppose the changes. 

The Farnum amendments are the result of private negotiations that Womack said included Democratic Sens. Gary Carter of New Orleans and Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge, although Womack said Fields opposed splitting East Baton Rouge into three districts. Fields is widely believed to be considering a run for the new majority-Black seat in Congress. 

The amendments were given to committee members late Thursday afternoon, more than five hours after the panel was scheduled to begin debate on Womack’s bill. 

The lack of public notice on significant amendments — and the significant delay in debate posed by their drafting — presented an additional transparency problem on top of those already present in the rushed eight-day special session.

Steven Procopio, president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, said a litany of factors lead to minimal public input and a lack of transparency. 

Not only were there no prefiled bills for the session, which would give the public an opportunity to consider the legislation before it is taken up, Procopio noted Landry gave no indication during his campaign for governor that he would ask the legislature to consider other election policy issues during the nine-day session. Most notably, he failed to mention his push to switch Louisiana to closed partisan primary elections. 

“You have bills that are released in less than 24 hours before committee,” Procopio said. “You’re trying to get it done quickly. Citizens can’t make it (to the Capitol) because there’s an ice storm.” 

“There’s a whole lot of transparency concerns,” he added.