Louisiana House and Senate Redistricting Coaltion Letter

There are countless other potential district configurations of both the Senate and the House that would add a significant number of new majority-minority opportunity districts where the BVAP is the numerical majority,21 the Black voting community is geographically compact, and the share of Black majority-minority opportunity districts would fairly reflect the State’s population and demographics. [...] 5 redistricting principles.22 For example, the illustrative Senate map has fewer overall parish and precinct splits than the current map, and the overall average of the widely recognized statistical measures of compactness of the illustrative Senate map are better than the current map.23 The most of the majority-minority opportunity districts on the illustrative Senate map also have better compact. [...] In addition to the indicia of the three Gingles preconditions, under the “totality of circumstances,” Black voters have “less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice” in Louisiana’s State Legislature elections.30 Several of the Senate Factors31 strongly indicate that vote dilution is occurring, including:. [...] The following are a sample of the indicia under the totality of circumstances impacting Black voters’ ability to participate equally in Louisiana’s State Legislature elections: Senate Factor 1: • The state of Louisiana has an extensive history and ongoing record of voting discrimination that has touched upon the right of Black and other minority voters, to register to vote, to vote, or otherwise t. [...] As part of the consent decree, the court created a majority-minority judicial district that has continued to elect the only Black member of the State Supreme Court.49 An additional important factor in evaluating the totality of the circumstances is whether there is rough proportionality between the number of majority-minority voting districts and the minority members’ share of the relevant populat.