Louisiana's state Senate approved the new congressional map 28-10 on Friday, May 29, according to PBS NewsHour. The House had already tweaked and approved it earlier in the week. The map now heads to Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who already set this process in motion and is expected to sign it.

Louisiana just became the first state to get a new map across the finish line following the Supreme Court's recent ruling.

What the Map Does

Louisiana currently has a 4-2 Republican advantage in its six-seat congressional delegation, per NBC News. The new map is designed to make that 5-1.

It dismantles the majority-Black district that stretched from Baton Rouge to Shreveport — the one created after a 2022 lawsuit argued Louisiana was illegally diluting Black voting power. That district gets broken up. One majority-Black district survives: a seat that snakes from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.

Black voters make up roughly one-third of Louisiana's population. Under this map, they'd hold one of six seats — about 16% of representation, according to NBC News.

The Legal Argument Republicans Are Making

Republicans aren't pretending the politics don't exist. They're leaning into them — and using the Supreme Court's own language to do it.

State Sen. Jay Morris, the bill's sponsor, said flatly: "We focused on the Democrat numbers, not the racial numbers when drawing." He told PBS NewsHour he specifically instructed demographers to exclude racial data from what lawmakers saw before the vote.

State Rep. Beau Beaullieu echoed that in the House: "We focused in this case on partisanship, which is what Callais said, is clearly permissible."

Partisanship is legally safer ground in the wake of Louisiana v. Callais. Republicans are interpreting the Supreme Court ruling — handed down just last month — as holding that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act only protects against maps drawn with intentional racial discrimination, and that discriminatory effect alone is no longer sufficient. Whether that reading of Callais is correct remains contested, and courts have yet to rule on it.

Republicans are explicitly threading that needle. Whether courts buy it is another question.

The Democratic Counterargument

Democratic state Rep. Kyle Green Jr. put it starkly, according to NBC News: "We are being asked to take one of two minority opportunity districts in this state — where Black Louisianians are nearly one-third of the population — and to reduce that minority opportunity representation to a single seat out of six... That's not a map. That's a math problem with the moral answer, and the answer is no."

Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins told Morris directly: "I think it's a racially gerrymandered district," per PBS NewsHour.

In the South, partisanship and race are tightly correlated. Packing more Democrats into one district almost always means packing more Black voters. The legal question is whether intent can be proven. That's a much harder bar to clear now.

The 40,000 Discarded Votes

Louisiana's House primaries were originally scheduled for May 16. Landry issued an executive order delaying them. Some 40,000 votes had already been cast — including mail ballots — before the delay, according to NBC News. Those votes were thrown out.

NPR noted that early voting had already begun when the delay was ordered. Tens of thousands of Louisiana voters who thought they'd participated in an election simply didn't. Their votes don't count.

Whatever you think about the map itself, discarding 40,000 cast ballots to give a legislature time to redraw district lines marks an extraordinary action.

Why Republicans Didn't Go Further

Some Louisiana Republicans pushed for a 6-0 map — all six seats going GOP. The legislature said no, and the reason is purely tactical.

Drawing a 6-0 map would have required spreading Black Democratic voters across Republican-held districts. That risks making those districts competitive. Specifically, NPR reported lawmakers feared jeopardizing seats held by House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise. A 5-1 map is safer for the incumbents who matter most to House Republican leadership.

What Comes Next

Voting rights advocates have already signaled the map will be challenged, according to NBC News. The one surviving majority-Black district — the New Orleans-to-Baton Rouge snake — is expected to be the target.

The rescheduled Louisiana House primaries are now set for November 3, per NPR. This map governs those elections.

Louisiana is also not the only state moving. PBS NewsHour reported this is "one of several Southern states now redrawing their maps" in the wake of Callais, with President Trump pushing to protect the GOP's slim House majority heading into the 2026 midterms.

Louisiana Republicans drew a map they argue is legally permissible under the new rules the Supreme Court wrote last month. They're explicit that it's partisan. Courts will decide if that cover holds.

But 40,000 Louisiana voters had their ballots thrown out to make this happen. That part remains unanswered.