BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana’s Republican-controlled Senate is poised to pass a plan Friday to help the GOP maintain control of the U.S. House in November, potentially becoming the latest Southern state to eliminate a majority-Black congressional district that elected a Democrat.The state Senate is set to vote on a redistricting plan that would give Republicans a chance to pick up an additional seat in response to late April’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Louisiana’s congressional district map constituted an illegal racial gerrymander.An amended map overwhelmingly passed the House on Thursday. Once the final map clears the Legislature, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign it.In the weeks following the Supreme Court’s decision, several other Republican-controlled Southern states have seized upon a weakened federal Voting Rights Act to try to redraw their own congressional districts. It’s the latest flare-up in a heated national redistricting battle heading into the November elections, spurred along by President Donald Trump.
So far, Republicans are winning the redistricting contest. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they will win a narrowly divided U.S. House in November. So far, Republicans think they could gain as many as 14 seats from their redistricting efforts, while Democrats think they could gain six seats from new districts in California and Utah.
