Louisiana

Election chaos in Louisiana as only state without a congressional map for fall ballot

Published

9 months ago

May 2, 2024

Election chaos in Louisiana as only state without a congressional map for fall ballot

A federal court panel’s divided decision to throw out Louisiana’s congressional boundaries has left the state without a map to hold the Nov. 5 election and less than two weeks to produce one before the state’s chief elections officer’s deadline to conduct a fall ballot.

The three-judge panel issued a 2-1 decision Tuesday ruling Louisiana’s congressional map creating a second Black majority district was unconstitutional because of “an impermissible racial gerrymander,” siding with the plantiffs who sued to block the boundaries.

U.S. Western District Judges Robert Summerhays and David Joseph, both nominated by President Trump, sided with the plaintiffs. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Carl Stewart, nominated by President Bill Clinton, dissented.

The court has scheduled a status conference at 10:30 a.m. May 6 to discuss what’s next for the state and intervenors who defended the map and the plaintiffs who successfully challenged it.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told USA Today Network Thursday she expects to file a motion with the panel by Friday to permit the state to implement the rejected map pending an appeal of its verdict to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a group of Black voters and other civic organizations have already filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to allow the rejected map to remain in place as an emergency remedy for the 2024 election until a new map can clear the courts.

The NAACP Legal Defense fund will also enter Monday’s hearing with its own preferred map that would create a second majority Black district.

“We will continue fighting on all fronts for a map that has two majority Black district as a matter of fair and constitutional representation as we have been for the past two years,” NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney Jared Evans told USA Today Network.

Evans said he doesn’t believe two weeks is enough time for the panel or Louisiana Legislature to craft a new map, which is why the intervenors have asked the Supreme Court to allow the rejected map to be implemented for the 2024 elections only.

“Louisiana is the only state that doesn’t have a congressional map,” he said. “This is an emergency.”

But Paul Hurd, an attorney with the plaintiffs who will likely have their own map to submit, dismissed those concerns.

“With the technology we have today we can draw a map in 4 hours,” Hurd said. “We can definitely deliver an answer by (Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry’s) May 15 deadline.

“I think we’re right on schedule, but we’ll find out Monday. If the court asks for proposals I’m sure we’ll have one.”

The federal panel could also commission what’s known as a special master to draw a new map it finds acceptable.

At stake are the political careers of the incumbents and scope of representation for the state’s Black voters.

The plaintiffs successfully challenged the map by attacking the new majority Black 6th Congressional District boundaries stretching from Baton Rouge to Lafayette to Alexandria to Shreveport as unconstitutional, arguing they they didn’t meet traditional redistriction principles like compactness and preserving communities of interests.

The state contended additional factors drove the map, including the politics of protecting powerful incumbent Louisiana Republicans U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (4th District), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (1st District) and Julia Letlow (5th District), a member of the Appropriations Committee that controls the country’s pursestrings.

Doing so put Republican U.S. Rep. Graves, the current 6th District congressman, in peril by dismantling his boundaries in favor of a majority Black voter population.

The lawsuit was just the latest litigation challenging the state’s ever-shifting congressional boundaries since the 2020 U.S. census.

Late last year a federal appeals court signaled it would uphold Baton Rouge Middle District Judge Shelly Dick’s earlier ruling requiring Louisiana’s previous congressional map be redrawn to include a second majority Black district out of six to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

The Republican-dominated Legislature complied and new GOP Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law the newest map in January, only to have it thrown out this week by the three-judge panel after a three-day trial in Shreveport in early April.

More: Federal judges throw out Louisiana congressional map with second Black District

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.

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Louisiana

A little water makes a lot of snow. Why future snow melt won’t lead to floods.

Published

5 hours ago

January 22, 2025

Press Room

A little water makes a lot of snow. Why future snow melt won’t lead to floods.

If you’ve been a weather nerd and checking the National Weather Service’s hourly precipitation tallies, you might have noticed something appears to be off with the measurements of Tuesday’s snowstorm.

Precipitation measurements are in the tenths and hundreds of an inch, though widespread measurements of the blanket of snow falling across the state are in the several inches.

Baton Rouge, for instance, had a reported 6 inches of snow by midday Tuesday, though hourly measurements from Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport only measured 0.27 inches of precipitation.

What’s the deal?

Vincent “Vinny” Brown, an LSU climatologist, said those National Weather Service precipitation measurements are in liquid amounts, not snow accumulation totals.

The ice crystals that make up snow take up more volume than liquid water, but exactly what that ratio is in any given snowstorm can involve a number of factors.

One old rule of thumb is 10-to-1, or 10 inches of snow for every 1 inch of liquid, but forecasters have developed other ways to predict snow accumulations.

The Kuchera snow ratio, for example, is a widely used statistical method that relies on the warmest temperatures in the air column to try to estimate snowfall.

But it can be a difficult task. According to the National Weather Service, factors such as the amount of ice in a snow cloud, the types of snowflakes being formed, how warm it is between the snow cloud and the surface of the Earth, and windiness can all increase or decrease the amount of snow hitting the ground.

Deep cold can push the snow-to-water ratio to as much as 20-to-1, the Weather Service says. Some academic papers published by the American Meteorological Society say that ratio can range from 3-to-1 to 100-to-1.

Phil Grigsby, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Slidell, said published snowfall tallies are measurements of actual accumulations on the ground or other surfaces that the service’s network of observers are reporting.

“Those are actual people going out and measuring them … on patio tables and decks and things like that,” he said.

He added that this difference between snow volume and water volume means the eventual melting of south Louisiana’s coating of snow is unlikely to have much of an impact on local waterways.

Grigsby added that the snow falling across south Louisiana is on the dry side and that means the snow-to-water ratio is even wider than the typical rule of thumb.

That means even less water will ultimately run off once the snow melts.

“This won’t cause any flooding issues at all,” Grigsby said.

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Louisiana

Central Louisiana residents delight in a rare snow day Tuesday

Published

13 hours ago

January 21, 2025

Press Room

Central Louisiana residents delight in a rare snow day Tuesday

Snow is not something that you see very often in Central Louisiana.

Central Louisiana woke up to a blanket of snow, and several Pineville residents were out Tuesday morning enjoying it while it lasted.

“We love it,” said Nikita Rackley, who was outside on Myrtle Street with Jayden Deslatte, 10, and his uncle Wesley Deslatte enjoying the rare snowfall.

Chris Jasper, 20, and Corneilous Hughes, 12, donned a pair of Louisiana mittens (socks) on their hands as they pelted each other with snowballs on Barrett Street. Jasper said the socks did help keep their hands warm a little bit.

“I hadn’t seen snow in years,” Jasper said.

It was the first time Hughes has seen snow in Louisiana but has seen it in Houston. He expected it to snow here on Christmas.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said Jaden Wells, a Louisiana Christian University freshman psychology major from Mandeville.

The campus was closed Tuesday due to the weather, but Wells and Noah Nava, a junior education major from Newton, Texas, were outside throwing snowballs at each other and attempting to build a snowman.

The snow was not sticky enough for the snowman, so they ended up with a small mound.

“It’s perfect for snowballs though,” said Nava, showing one he just made.

“We don’t get this a lot so you’ve got to get outside and enjoy it as much as you can,” said Wells.

The National Weather Service in Lake Charles issued a Winter Storm Warning from midnight Tuesday until midnight Wednesday. A low of 14 degrees is expected for Tuesday night. Wednesday’s high is expected to be 30, with a low of 19.

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