Cleo Fields Rules Out Running Against Troy Carter If Louisiana Merges Its Two Black Districts

LAFAYETTE, La. — Congressman Cleo Fields joined The Joe Cunningham Show on Tuesday to talk through the Louisiana v. Callais decision and what it means for Louisiana’s congressional map. On one question, he did not hesitate: he will not run against Troy Carter.

“If the two minority districts are combined into one, I won’t be running for that district,” Fields told KPEL. “Let’s be clear on that. I have no desire, have no interest in running against Representative Carter. I just think that would be pitting us against each other.”

Fields represents Louisiana’s 6th Congressional District, a Baton Rouge-based seat created in 2024 after a federal court ordered the state to add a second majority-Black district. The Supreme Court struck that map down on April 29, ruling 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais that it was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, significantly narrowed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the provision designed to protect minority voters from having their political power diluted by district lines.

Get our free mobile app

Fields Has Seen This Before

Fields said the legislature could go several directions with the map, and put the odds of a merger at better than even.

“The likelihood of that district looking that way is probably better than a 50% chance,” he said. “But the legislature, they will make the determination.”

“I’ve been, for lack of a better word, kicked out of Congress before,” Fields said. “It’s not my first rodeo.”

Fields first served in Congress in the 1990s, representing Louisiana’s 4th Congressional District, a majority-Black seat the Supreme Court struck down in 1995 as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. He won back a seat in 2024 under the new map, and the Supreme Court invalidated it before he finished his first term.

‘A Race to the Bottom’

Fields traced the current redistricting push directly to President Trump, who, he said, called the governor of Texas to request additional Republican congressional seats.

“All this started with the president, when he picked up the phone and called the governor of Texas and said, ‘I need five more Republican votes,’” Fields said. “What president does that? It bothers me to even know that people have accepted their president actually calling governors and telling them to draw lines. And then it became a race to the bottom.”

He also criticized how the court handled the case procedurally, noting that the judgment was issued before the Robinson plaintiffs could file for a rehearing.

“They didn’t even give the Robinson plaintiffs the opportunity to file for a rehearing,” he said. “Alito said he didn’t think they were going to file for one because they hadn’t. How does he know what the plaintiffs were thinking?”

He drew a direct comparison to Plessy v. Ferguson.

“Now I know what people felt like when the Supreme Court ruled that it was okay to be segregated,” he said. “I guess they feel the way many people feel today. The way I feel today.”

The Map Fight in Baton Rouge

While Fields was on the phone with KPEL, the legislative process to redraw Louisiana’s six congressional districts was already underway at the State Capitol. The Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee held a public hearing May 8 that drew hundreds of protesters, featured a shouting match between lawmakers, and recessed twice before it concluded.

Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, the Port Allen Republican who chairs the redistricting committee, has indicated the legislature is most likely to advance a 5-1 map that preserves one majority-Black district, according to the Louisiana Illuminator. That remaining seat would likely be centered in Baton Rouge, which benefits Fields. Carter’s New Orleans-based 2nd District would be eliminated under that scenario.

All four Black men to have served in Congress from Louisiana since Reconstruction appeared before the committee at the same table: Carter, Fields, former Rep. William Jefferson, and former Rep. Cedric Richmond.

“Today, here in Louisiana we’re being tested and the whole world is watching,"Carter told the committee. "The question before us is not merely about lines on a map. The question before us is whether we will honor the principle that every citizen deserves equal protection of the law.”

The committee is scheduled to reconvene on Wednesday, May 13 to advance a map toward a full Senate vote.

Fields on Voting Rights and Representation

Fields also addressed the counterargument that the Supreme Court’s decision did not strip the right to vote, just reshaped how congressional districts are drawn.

“When you can have the right to do something, and people can still keep you from doing it, that’s the issue,” he said. Fields pointed to literacy tests, poll taxes, and registration barriers that persisted for decades after the 15th Amendment technically guaranteed Black men the right to vote.

He noted that roughly 30 percent of Louisiana’s population is Black and not a single African American has ever won a congressional seat in the state out of a majority-white district.

“There’s not a single African American ever elected to Congress from the state of Louisiana from a majority-majority district,” Fields said. “Same thing with Mississippi and Alabama. I wish that day would come, but at least right now, it’s not here now.”

He compared the question of minority representation in government to the integration of the U.S. military.

“When we diversified our military, we didn’t become weaker, we became stronger,” he said. “The same is true for this country.”

You can listen to the full interview below.