\n<\/p>\n
After the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in late April, Republican lawmakers across the South scrambled to redraw their states\u2019 congressional maps.<\/p>\n
The court\u2019s decision allowed Republicans, who hold supermajorities in legislatures across the South, to go after more Democratic-held House districts, extending a lengthy tit-for-tat redistricting battle with Democrats that had seemed at an end. While Republicans said they were focused only on partisan advantage, not race, the changes effectively targeted areas where Black voters form the majority.<\/p>\n
The effort angered many Black Democrats, who accused conservatives of intentionally undermining their voting power in a region with a painful history of discrimination. Voting remains racially polarized in the South, so Black voters have historically backed Democrats.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a look at how Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee broke up majority-Black districts. At least one other Southern state, Georgia, aims to follow suit before the 2028 election.<\/p>\n
Louisiana\u2019s former congressional map was at the center of the case before the Supreme Court, which declared the map an illegal racial gerrymander. The new map targeted the Sixth Congressional District, a fairly new majority-Black seat that included the capital, Baton Rouge.<\/p>\n
About a third of voters in Louisiana are Black.<\/p>\n
Black outlines indicate majority-Black districts.<\/p>\n
Distribution of Black voters in \u2026<\/p>\n
During the debate over redistricting, the president of the State Senate, Cameron Henry, a Republican, told reporters, \u201cIf you\u2019re taking the variables in place, such as incumbency, such as party, into some of the factors, you don\u2019t have a lot of options.\u201d
Where more Black<\/strong> or white<\/strong> people live<\/p>\n Where Trump<\/strong> orHarris<\/strong> got more\u00a0votes<\/p>\n Most of the changes center on Black \u2014 and mostly Democratic \u2014 voters who live around Baton Rouge. The district lines, however, largely preserve the New Orleans-area majority-Black seat held by Representative Troy Carter, a Black Democrat.<\/p>\n After the Supreme Court ruling, Alabama asked the courts to allow the state to use a map that the legislature approved in 2023 but that was later rejected by a federal court. The Birmingham-based federal court had ordered Alabama to draw a map with a second majority-Black district or something \u201cclose to it.\u201d<\/p>\n More than one in four Alabama residents are Black.<\/p>\n Black outlines indicate majority-Black districts.<\/p>\n Distribution of Black voters in \u2026<\/p>\n An independent special master drew a new district that stretched from the capital, Montgomery, through the region known as the Black Belt for its rich, loamy soil, to Mobile, a coastal city.<\/p>\n Outside the South, \u201cthere\u2019s not that history of racial animus and racial discrimination towards blocking or minimizing your vote,\u201d said Representative Shomari Figures, a Black Democrat who won the new majority-Black seat in 2024 only to see it redrawn to favor Republicans in 2026.<\/p>\n Where more Black<\/strong> or white<\/strong> people live<\/p>\n Where Trump<\/strong> orHarris<\/strong> got more\u00a0votes<\/p>\n Republicans said the 2023 map would ensure representation for the Gulf Coast region of the state because it did not split Mobile from the rest of Mobile County. This month, the Supreme Court said Alabama could use it.<\/p>\n That leaves the state with one majority-Black district, which includes the city of Selma. That seat is held by Representative Terri Sewell, a Black Democrat.<\/p>\n After the Supreme Court ruling, Tennessee was the first state to draft and approve a new congressional map that went after its one majority-Black seat, the Ninth Congressional District.<\/p>\n That district included the city of Memphis, where more than half of the state\u2019s Black population lives. The new map split the Memphis area into three districts.<\/p>\n Black outlines indicate majority-Black districts.<\/p>\n Distribution of Black voters in \u2026<\/p>\n The Ninth was one of the few majority-Black districts represented by a white lawmaker, Representative Steve Cohen. Mr. Cohen, a Democrat who had retained significant support among Black voters since his first election in 2006, said he would not seek re-election.<\/p>\n Where more Black<\/strong> or white<\/strong> people live<\/p>\n Where Trump<\/strong> orHarris<\/strong> got more\u00a0votes<\/p>\n There is no longer a single majority-Black district in Tennessee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act in late April, Republican lawmakers across the South scrambled to redraw their states\u2019 congressional maps. The court\u2019s decision allowed Republicans, who hold supermajorities in legislatures across the South, to go after more Democratic-held House districts, extending a lengthy tit-for-tat redistricting battle with Democrats that had seemed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1515,6868,24479,4627],"class_list":{"0":"post-50435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-breaking","9":"tag-districts","10":"tag-majorityblack","11":"tag-republicans"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Alabama<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
How Alabama dissolved one of its two Black voting strongholds<\/h3>\n
Tennessee<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
How Tennessee broke up its only majority-Black district<\/h3>\n