Overview
- The House and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 10-7 along party lines to advance Senate Bill 121 after a roughly 10-hour hearing on Thursday.
- Lawmakers adopted Rep. Dixon McMakin’s amendment that shifts multiple parishes and keeps five Republican-leaning districts while reducing Louisiana to one majority-Black, majority-Democratic seat.
- The committee split purely on partisan lines with Republicans supporting the amended map and Democrats opposing it, and the bill now moves to the full House where Republicans hold a supermajority.
- Prominent Black civic leaders including Marc Morial and Sidney Barthelemy testified in forceful opposition, calling the plan discriminatory and urging lawmakers to redraw the map to avoid harming Black political representation.
- Supporters cite the Supreme Court’s Callais decision and past DOJ preclearance as legal cover but opponents say the plan is likely to prompt costly federal litigation and could reshape which communities have a real chance to elect members of Congress.