Louisiana

US supreme court to rule on new mostly Black Louisiana congressional districts

Published

2 weeks ago

November 4, 2024

US supreme court to rule on new mostly Black Louisiana congressional districts

The US supreme court said on Monday it will take up a new redistricting case involving Louisiana’s congressional map with two mostly Black districts.

The court will not hear arguments until early next year and the 2024 elections are proceeding under the challenged map, which could boost Democrats’ chances of retaking the closely divided US House.

A lower court had invalidated the map, but the justices allowed it to be used in 2024 after an emergency appeal from the state and civil rights groups.

The issue in front of the justices is whether the state relied too heavily on race in drawing a second majority Black district.

The court’s order on Monday is the latest step in federal court battles over Louisiana congressional districts that have lasted more than two years. Louisiana has had two congressional maps blocked by lower courts – and the US supreme court has intervened twice.

The state’s Republican-dominated legislature drew a new congressional map in 2022 to account for population shifts reflected in the 2020 census. But the changes in effect maintained the status quo of five Republican-leaning majority white districts and one Democratic-leaning majority Black district in a state that is about one-third Black.

Noting the size of the state’s Black population, civil rights advocates challenged the map in a Baton Rouge-based federal court and won a ruling from US district judge Shelly Dick that the districts probably discriminated against Black voters.

The supreme court put Dick’s ruling on hold while it took up a similar case from Alabama. The justices allowed both states to use the maps in the 2022 elections even though both had been ruled likely to be discriminatory by federal judges.

The high court eventually affirmed the ruling from Alabama, which led to a new map and a second district that could elect a Black lawmaker. The justices returned the Louisiana case to federal court, with the expectation that new maps would be in place for the 2024 elections.

The fifth US circuit court of appeals gave lawmakers in Louisiana a deadline of early 2024 to draw a new map or face the possibility of a court-imposed map.

Jeff Landry, the state’s Republican governor, had defended Louisiana’s congressional map as the state’s attorney general. Now, though, he urged lawmakers to pass a new map with another majority-Black district at a special session in January. He backed a map that created a new majority Black district stretching across the state, linking parts of the Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette and Baton Rouge.

A different set of plaintiffs, a group of self-described non-African Americans, filed suit in western Louisiana, claiming that the new map was also illegal because it was driven too much by race, in violation of the US constitution. A divided panel of federal judges ruled 2-1 in April in their favor and blocked use of the new map.

The supreme court voted 6-3 to put that ruling on hold and allow the map to be used.

Liz Murrill, the state attorney general whose office has defended both maps enacted by lawmakers, called on the court to “provide more clear guidance to legislators and reduce judicial second-guessing after the legislature does its job”.

“Based upon the supreme court’s most recent pronouncements, we believe the map is constitutional,” Murrill said.

The state and civil rights groups were at odds over the first map but are allies now.

“Federal law requires Louisiana to have a fair map that reflects the power and voice of the state’s Black communities,” Stuart Naifeh of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund said in a statement. “The state recognized as much when it adopted a new map with a second majority-Black district in January. Now the supreme court must do the same.”

The supreme court vote to use the challenged map in this year’s elections was unusual in that the dissenting votes came from the three liberal justices, who have been supportive of Black voters in redistricting cases. But, in an opinion by justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, they said their votes were motivated by their view that there was time for a new map to be drawn – and their disagreement with past court orders that cited the approach of an election to block lower-court rulings.

“There is little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed this far out from the November election,” Jackson wrote in May.

In adopting the districts that are being used this year, Landry and his allies said the driving factor was politics, not race. The congressional map provides politically safe districts for the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and majority leader, Steve Scalise, fellow Republicans. Some lawmakers have also noted that the one Republican whose district was greatly altered in the new map, Garret Graves, supported a Republican opponent of Landry in the 2023 governor’s race. Graves chose not to seek re-election under the new map.

Among the candidates in the new district is Cleo Fields, a Democratic state senator and former congressman who is Black.

Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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Louisiana

Know the Foe: Gaining Louisiana Tech insight with BleedTechBlue

Published

47 mins ago

November 21, 2024

Press Room

Know the Foe: Gaining Louisiana Tech insight with BleedTechBlue

As we will do throughout this football season, HawgBeat went behind enemy lines to gain insight on the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs with BleedTechBlue Publisher Ben Carlisle.

Louisiana Tech has been on a bit of a roller-coaster this season, as it defeated a team like Western Kentucky (7-3 record) and nearly beat NC State on the road, but the Bulldogs lost Tulsa, FIU and Sam Houston.

Under Cumbie’s leadership, Louisiana Tech has accumulated a 10-24 (7-16 CUSA) overall record in three seasons. This year, the Bulldogs boast the No. 104 total offense (344.4 YPG) and No. 61 passing offense (232.2 YPG) in the country.

Here is what Carlisle had to say about Saturday’s matchup, which is set to kick off at 3 p.m. CT at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville…

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Louisiana

Louisiana lawmakers search for ways to pay for Landry’s proposed income tax cut • Louisiana Illuminator

Published

9 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Press Room

Louisiana lawmakers search for ways to pay for Landry’s proposed income tax cut • Louisiana Illuminator

Gov. Jeff Landry’s ambitious plan to overhaul Louisiana’s tax structure has largely been pared down to a more modest goal – cutting state income taxes.

Lawmakers are working on a way to make sure the state can pay for that desired tax reduction while not having to make damaging cuts to areas such as health care and higher education.

Options include raising the state sales tax rate higher than it is now, retaining a higher corporate income tax rate than proposed or settling on an income tax cut that is smaller than Landry originally pitched weeks ago.

The governor wanted to move to a flat personal income tax rate of 3% – the highest rate currently is 4.25% – but it will cost the state more than $1 billion annually. Landry’s income tax plan also leaves the state approximately $700 million short of what is needed to cover the costs of government, according to senators.

Through his Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson, the governor had originally crafted a proposal that would exchange a broader base of tax collections for lower personal income and corporate taxes. Nelson said Louisiana would be able to pay for across-the-board personal income and corporate tax rate cuts totaling billions of dollars as long as the state scrapped generous business tax breaks and applied the sales tax to a greater range of products.

The governor has struggled to get lawmakers to fully embrace the trade off, however.

Legislators have eagerly voted for bills to cut corporate and personal income taxes but stalled on proposals to help make up for that lost revenue.

Landry’s tax package started to unravel last week when the Louisiana House of Representatives refused to vote for legislation that would extend the sales tax to more services, such as lawn care, home repair and dog grooming.

“Obviously, the services bill in its original form was a little over $500 million, which would equate to about a half a point on the personal income tax,” House Speaker Phillip Devillier, R-Eunice, said.

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This week, the Senate declined to fully roll back some of the state’s expensive business incentive programs, such as its movie and television tax credits and historic preservation tax breaks that collectively cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

A plan to eliminate a state inventory tax credit, which covers taxes businesses pay to local governments, has been delayed until 2026, and a proposal to increase a tax on heavy machinery and equipment used by industrial employers has also been scrapped.

If he doesn’t find a way to make up for that money, Landry runs the risk of revisiting the same political problems that plagued former Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Jindal also cut income taxes without replacing the lost revenue or finding a permanent way to cut government spending. His policy led to chronic budget problems for years and made the former governor deeply unpopular when he left office.

Senate leaders appear to be pushing for a higher state sales tax rate to help fill the hole left by the personal income tax cut.

It was scheduled to automatically drop from 4.45% to 4% in July, though Landry had already pitched keeping the extra 0.45% permanently as a way to cover the corporate and personal income tax reductions. Now, lawmakers are considering an even higher rate to cover the state’s expenses; 5% has been floated for a few days.

“This isn’t a tax-lowering session. This is a tax-reorganization session,” Rep. Michael Echols, R-Monroe, said Wednesday.

Louisiana already has one of the highest average sales tax rates in the country, and that levy is a larger burden on poor people who have to pay the same rate as the wealthy. Very low-income households don’t pay income tax and won’t necessarily see benefits from cuts Landry and lawmakers make in that arena.

“As soon as you start to increase the sales tax more, the plan becomes more regressive,” said Rep. Matthew Willard, D-New Orleans, leader of the House Democratic Caucus.

Several Republicans and Democrats in the House also weren’t enthusiastic about the sales tax portion of the original tax plan and might not want to vote for a 5% rate. A bill to keep the state sales tax at 4.4% barely passed the House, with just two votes to spare last week.

“That would be the top number we need for sales,” Sen. Franklin Foil, R-Baton Rouge said Wednesday morning. “We don’t necessarily have the votes to do that yet. We need to get a tally of where things stand.”

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Lafayette Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, head of the Senate Democratic Caucus, said his party doesn’t want a higher sales tax rate, but Democrats also fear government programs they champion, like social services, will be targeted if they don’t support the proposal.

“We want to make sure the things that are important to us will be funded, right?” Boudreaux said Wednesday before he and other Democratic senators headed off to a meeting with Landry.

Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, was bullish on the legislators’ willingness to raise the sales tax to 5%.

“I think it can get there. It’s an easier path for that than it is for broadening the base,” he said.

If lawmakers aren’t willing to raise the sales tax more, legislators could look to retain more of the current corporate income tax rate, but they’ve already pulled back on an original plan to cut that tax dramatically.

Landry initially pitched replacing the graduated corporate tax rate that tops out at 7.5% with a flat 3%. But the senators moved that levy back up to 6% earlier this week to claw back some revenue. A further increase might be unlikely given pressure from business lobbyists.

Corporate taxes are also a notoriously unstable source of tax revenue. In part because sizable tax credits can be applied in any budget cycle, corporate tax collections have ranged from $193 million to $1.6 billion annually over the past 10 years, according to the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana.

Legislators could also increase the personal income tax rate from 3% but seem very reluctant to do so. If it does go up, they would try to keep it to a small adjustment, like up to 3.1% or 3.2%.

“My belief is the personal income tax will, probably will, stay at 3(%),” said Foil, who heads the Senate committee that oversees tax policy.

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Arkansas vs. Louisiana Tech: Star comparison, PFF grades, season stats

Published

16 hours ago

November 20, 2024

Press Room

Arkansas vs. Louisiana Tech: Star comparison, PFF grades, season stats

The Arkansas Razorbacks (5-5, 3-4 SEC) will look to secure bowl eligibility Saturday against Louisiana Tech (4-6, 3-4 CUSA) at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville.

Hailing from Ruston, Louisiana, the Bulldogs will bring the nation’s No. 12 total defense with them to Fayetteville fresh off an upset win over Western Kentucky, which was leading the Conference USA standings prior to last Saturday.

“We’re catching them when I think they’re playing their best football,” Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman said Monday. “They deliver some problems. The structure of their defense. They’re a 3-3-5 but it’s different because they have a robber, a rover — a guy basically who’s hard to get to to block. Who is a really, really good player. The (Kolbe) Fields kid.

“So offensively, they’re running the ball a lot better than they have all year. Not throwing it quite as much as what they did earlier in the year. Bu the transfer from Coffeyville (Omiri Wiggins) is a hard runner. Their line is playing well. They’ve got a lot of speed at wideout. So I think they’re going to come in with a lot of confidence, obviously, after their win last week. We’re excited to have them here and on senior day for us. But we know that was a big win for them last week and they’ll come in with a lot of confidence I’m sure.”

Arkansas is statistically better than the Bulldogs in generally every major offensive category, but the Louisiana Tech defense is stingy. Former Razorback Zach Zimos has logged nearly 500 snaps on the year at linebacker, which is a position he switched to after being a safety with the Razorbacks.

“He’d hit you,” Pittman said. “When he hit you, you got stuck. Certainly playing a different position than we had him here. But I like Zach, I always have. I’m happy for him. I think he’s one of the leaders over there. He’s played a lot of ball. I’m just really happy for him and he’s doing a good job. He’ll hit you, now, so we’ll have to figure that out.”

The Razorbacks will be trying to bounce back from a 20-10 loss to Texas that set them back to a .500 record on the season. A win over the Bulldogs would make Arkansas bowl eligible after the Hogs missed the postseason last year.

“This game, winning, if we can win, it will allow us to play not just another one but another one after that,” Pittman said. “And we just have to continue to improve. So I think that’s what we’ll talk about a little bit more than even what Louisiana Tech has been able to do lately.”

HawgBeat has also compared both teams’ grades from Pro Football Focus, which is a football analytics website that provides grades for each individual player and full teams after analyzing each game for all Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams. Grades are given from 0-100, with the higher the grade signifying better performance.

Here’s a look at how both teams stack up based on stats from this year and high school star ratings:

Offense

Louisiana Tech || Arkansas

Scoring: 21.9 (109th) | 30.7 (45th)

Total yards: 344.4 (104th) | 458.3 (11th)

Passing: 232.2 (61st) | 278.0 (20th)

Rushing: 112.2 (115th) | 180.3 (80th)

Third downs: 41.7% (57th) | 47.3% (15th)

Sacks allowed/game: 3.3 (122nd) | 3.1 (117th)

Turnovers: 19 (118th) | 17 (98th)

Defense

Louisiana Tech || Arkansas