Newly inaugurated Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill Monday approving Congressional maps that will create a second majority-Black district.
Last week the Louisiana state legislature approved the new Congressional maps which will redraw the Sixth Congressional District, currently represented by Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), to be the state's second majority-Black district.
“Today, we began the process of necessary structural change to our election system, allowing for a cleaner and simpler final ballot, and we took the pen out of the hand of a non-elected judge and placed it in the hands of the people,” Landry said on X, formerly Twitter, in his post announcing the signed bill.
He also signed bills allocating funds to certain state agencies on Monday as well as changing the primary system for the state.
The struggle over congressional districts in Louisiana has been active since 2022, when former Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) vetoed a set of maps passed by the state legislature. He argued that the proposed maps with only one majority-Black district were in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
While the veto was overridden by the state legislature that year, a federal judge later ordered the legislature to create a second majority-Black district. The Supreme Court then paused the ruling and allowed the map to be used in the 2022 midterms, where Graves won his fifth term in office.
After the Supreme Court invalidated Alabama’s congressional maps in 2023, the case was taken up by a federal appeals court that ruled that the legislature required a second majority-Black district by mid-January.
Gov. Landry called an eight-day special session in early January to accomplish the task, which was ultimately successful.