Louisiana Senate Committee Advances Map That Would End Cleo Fields’ Congressional District

BATON ROUGE, La. — A Louisiana Senate committee voted at 4:25 a.m. Wednesday to advance a new congressional map that would eliminate the majority-Black 6th Congressional District currently held by Rep. Cleo Fields.

Senate Bill 121, sponsored by Sen. Jay Morris, R-Monroe, cleared the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee on a 4-3 party-line vote, according to The Advocate. The bill now heads to the full Senate, where it could be amended before moving to the House.

The vote comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that Louisiana’s current congressional map is unconstitutional, forcing lawmakers to draw a new map.

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What the New Map Does to Louisiana’s Congressional Districts

Under the proposal, Fields’ 6th District would be redrawn from the ground up. The current district is a narrow corridor connecting Black communities from Baton Rouge north to Shreveport. The new version would replace that geography with mostly Republican-leaning voters across the Baton Rouge region, stretching from St. Landry Parish east to St. John Parish.

That makes it a Republican-safe seat, and Fields’ path to reelection in that district disappears.

Rep. Troy Carter’s District 2, currently based in New Orleans, would survive as the state’s sole Democratic-leaning seat. Under the new lines, District 2 would run from New Orleans along the Mississippi River, picking up a section of majority-Black neighborhoods in East Baton Rouge Parish. Of the district’s 602,109 voting-age residents, more than 264,000 would live in Orleans Parish, roughly 44 percent of the total. Jefferson Parish would contribute another 148,000 residents, with about 83,800 coming from East Baton Rouge. About 60 percent of registered voters in the redrawn district would be Democrats.

Morris said the Supreme Court’s ruling that drawing districts primarily on racial lines is unconstitutional gave him the opening to expand Republican representation in Congress.

The committee rejected a competing proposal from Sen. Ed Price, D-Gonzales, that would have preserved two Democratic-leaning districts while centering them on Orleans and East Baton Rouge parishes. Price argued his map avoided racial gerrymandering by designing districts with slightly larger White voting-age populations than Black. “What I presented to you today is maps that are fair,” Price said before his bill failed to advance.

Hours of Testimony, a Capitol Crowd, and a Party-Line Vote

The meeting drew a large crowd to the Capitol, with protesters gathering in hallways and chanting “We ain’t goin’ back” and “Whose vote? Our vote” before the committee convened.

Gov. Jeff Landry posted a video to social media Tuesday afternoon asking residents on both sides to keep the debate civil. “I know there is a lot of passion on both sides of this issue,” Landry said. “All I’m asking from fellow Louisianans is that we have a civil and intellectual debate.”

Checo Yancy, policy director with the advocacy group Voters Organized to Educate, told the committee: “Here we are in 2026 and Jim Crow is still hanging around. This is unacceptable.” Joan Simon, of Covington, said eliminating one of the state’s two majority-Black districts amounts to disenfranchising a third of the state’s population.

Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, stepped onto the committee after Sen. Gary Carter Jr. voluntarily stepped back from the panel following a heated exchange at a prior hearing. Duplessis pushed back on Morris directly. “People feel like something’s being taken from them,” Duplessis said. “People feel like your bill is rolling the state back at least six decades.”

Where Fields and Carter Stand Now

Fields said in a recent interview, ahead of this week’s vote, that he would not run against Carter for the lone Democratic seat regardless of what the legislature drew. Fields compared the Supreme Court’s ruling to Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 decision that legalized segregation, and said pitting himself against Carter “would be pitting us against each other.”

The committee’s 5-1 map will challenge that claim. If it passes the full legislature, Fields has no competitive district to run in.

Full Senate Vote Still Ahead

SB 121 now goes to the full Senate, where it could be amended before moving to the House. Landry would have the final say.

Republican state leaders, including Landry, Senate President Cameron Henry, and House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, have each voiced reservations about a more aggressive “6-0” map, which would leave no Democratic-leaning seats at all. The committee did not take up that option. President Trump has been pushing GOP-led states to maximize Republican congressional seats ahead of the November midterms, and whether that pressure changes the final map remains to be seen.

The legislature is working under a court-ordered deadline following the Supreme Court’s ruling on the existing map.

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