5 East Baton Rouge council members say new map packs Black votes, plan federal lawsuit

Bonnie Bolden
·2 min read
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BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Five members of the East Baton Rouge Parish Metropolitan Council plan to announce a federal lawsuit on Wednesday, June 26, arguing that the new voting district map for the city violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Cleve Dunn, Jr., Chauna Banks, Darryl Hurst, Lamont Cole, and Carolyn Coleman will discuss the lawsuit, which has not yet been filed. The news conference is set for 3:30 p.m. at Baton Rouge City Hall, 222 St. Louis St.

According to a media release, the officials say the new district map for the council, which takes effect in 2025, packs large numbers of Black voters into a few districts.

Common violates of the VRA are called packing and cracking.

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Packing overly distributes a group into a district to ensure the candidate wins by a wide margin. This overall limits the other party’s power. Cracking divides a voting population through multiple districts. It forces voters into minority roles, making it less likely they can elect the candidate they want.

The council members said the map puts almost 70% of Black registered voters into only 42% of the districts. It also would create a new majority white district.

Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome agreed that the new map doesn’t lead to fair representation for the community. She said in a statement that she stands with the council members.

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“As Mayor-President of Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish, I am committed to ensuring that our community’s fair representation reflects our diverse population. The current makeup of the East Baton Rouge Metropolitan Council does not accurately represent the demographics of our parish.

“The proposed new district map, set to take effect in 2025, unfortunately, continues this imbalance by diluting the voting strength of our Black residents, undermining their representation. The math doesn’t add up — East Baton Rouge Parish is roughly 50% Black, but the new map only designates five of the 12 metro council districts as majority Black when there should be six.”

Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome

Earlier this year, the Louisiana Legislature OK’d a new voting map for the state’s U.S. House of Representatives districts. Some voters argued that the creation of a new majority-Black district reaching from Shreveport to Baton Rouge was also a violation of federal voting law. A panel of federal judges threw it out, saying it represents an illegal racial gerrymander. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state must use the new map for fall 2024 elections.

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