Republican-Led Southern States Redraw Congressional Maps Following Supreme Court Ruling
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Republican-led Southern states have raced to redraw their congressional maps after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two weeks ago that severely weakened protections for districts with significant minority populations. Tennessee and Alabama have also either split up Democratic districts or taken steps to do so.
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The Guardian USTennessee Republicans have already enacted a new map, carving up the majority Black city of Memphis into three different congressional districts to get rid of the state’s lone Democrat in Congress. Louisiana, the state at the center of the supreme court’s Voting Rights Act decision, is on the brink of implementing a new map that would eliminate the seat of one of the state’s two Black Democrats in Congress. Alabama has successfully petitioned the US supreme court to allow it to eliminate a district currently represented by a Black Democrat. Instead, it will use a map this cycle that a court previously ruled was intentionally drawn to discriminate against Black voters.
Associated PressThe Supreme Court’s recent ruling weakening federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities has prompted Republicans in several Southern states to try to eliminate House districts with large minority populations that have elected Democrats. Tennessee and Alabama already have acted to implement different House maps that could help Republicans win an additional seat. A similar effort fizzled Tuesday in the South Carolina Senate.
NBC NewsBy comparison, Republicans are in position to pick up as many as 14 seats via six new maps that have been enacted over the past year, with the most recent coming in Tennessee. Earlier this week, the Supreme Court also cleared the way for Alabama to implement a new map that eliminates a Democratic-held district. And a new map proposal in Louisiana would do the same
PBS NewsHourLouisiana senate passes new U.S. House map that would eliminate majority-Black district The new U.S. House districts, which still need House approval, would be used for primary elections poised to be postponed from Saturday until November. This as South Carolina's governor pushed for congressional redistricting and could call lawmakers into a special session.
Fox NewsThe Virginia decision negated four more likely left-leaning congressional districts in that state. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court ruling, which determined that race should not dictate the redrawing of legislative district maps, spurred a slew of Republican-controlled southern states to quickly redraw their maps and create more right-leaning seats ahead of the midterms.
Washington TimesLawmakers in Louisiana and Alabama voted to redraw their congressional maps to eliminate racially gerrymandered districts, but each Republican-led legislature created only one additional Republican-leaning seat instead of two seats in each state, as some in the party had hoped.
The HillRepublicans in Louisiana state Senate advance map eliminating Democratic House district Louisiana state lawmakers voted early Wednesday morning to eliminate one of two majority-Black congressional voting districts in the state — the latest in a bitter redistricting fight between Republicans and Democrats.  The state’s Senate and Government Affairs Committee voted 4-3 along party lines at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday to advance a GOP-led redistricting effort after…
BreitbartThe Republican leader of South Carolina’s state Senate defied President Donald Trump and voted against a redistricting effort that could have slashed the state’s only Democrat-led congressional district, arguing that “South Carolina is stronger when we have a vibrant Democratic Party.”
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Louisiana House primary could shift to November After the Supreme Court ruling, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry postponed Louisiana’s U.S. House primaries that had been scheduled for Saturday.
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The Daily WireRepublican Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry previously suspended the congressional primary elections a day after the Supreme Court decision and only two days before early in-person voting was set to begin. Thousands of absentee ballots had already been returned by mail.
The Guardian USStates have been ruthlessly aggressive in their push to redraw districts, with Alabama and Louisiana taking the unprecedented steps of cancelling primary elections after voting was under way. “Those ballots are discarded and those voters will vote again in November,” Louisiana governor Jeff Landry, a Republican, said during an interview on 60 Minutes. More than 42,000 ballots were cast in Louisiana before the governor cancelled the election.
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Senate Bill 121 will now head to the state house. If it passes there, lawmakers must approve a new map by 1 June. On Wednesday, the state’s legislature gave final approval to a bill that would move the election to an open primary on 3 November, during which all US House candidates, regardless of party affiliation, would be on the ballot for voters in their district.
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Associated PressA bill given final approval Wednesday by the Legislature would shift the election to an open primary on Nov. 3. All U.S. House candidates, regardless of their party affiliation, would be on the ballot for voters in their district. If no one wins a majority outright, the top two vote-getters would enter a run-off on Dec. 12.
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“These maps are drawn to maximize Republican advantage for the incumbent Republicans that we have in Congress,” Morris said as debate began on the legislation he is sponsoring.
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The Guardian USDuring a lengthy floor debate on Thursday, the Republican state senator Jay Morris, who sponsored the bill, defended the new districts.
The Daily WireRepublicans, including the bill’s sponsor, state Senator Jay Morris, said the map was drawn solely for partisan advantage, rather than along racial lines.
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Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.
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01 The Guardian US But the state senator Sidney Barthelemy II, a Democrat, pushed back. “I would argue that if 80% of the Republican party is white, that [race] is a predominant factor – this amendment, and this bill in general, does use race as a predominant factor,” he said. “If the numbers bear out that the party is predominantly white, and you’re redistricting an area based on the party, then the two collide, and now you are redistricting based on race.”
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02 The Daily Wire “This Senate should seek to support a map that gives everyone a voice,” Democratic state Senator Katrina Jackson-Andrews said from the Senate floor on Thursday.
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03 Associated Press Under the new plan, that district would instead be clustered around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge area and southern Louisiana.
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04 Breitbart State Sen. Shane Massey’s (R-NC) first time talking to the president came last week when Trump called him to discuss how he wanted the redistricting to happen, the New York Times reported.
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05 Washington Times A cascade of red-state redistricting that followed the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision appeared to be losing steam.
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06 NBC News So they are shifting their attention to battles for control of legislatures in key states this fall to help lay the groundwork for new congressional maps for the 2028 election cycle.
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07 Fox News "You could in essence take … like here in Texas, take big cities, which are typically Democrat, and split them up among several sort of suburban and rural Republicans and thereby reduce their margin and make [House Republicans] more vulnerable in an election year," veteran GOP strategist and longtime Fox News contributor Karl Rove said Sunday in an interview on the Fox News Channel.
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