They say that you can’t take the politics out of politics. But the Legislature, as it proves this week, isn’t capable of doing politics in a way that works for the state, rather than just its own members and fellow politicians.
Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, vetoed two identical special session bills drawing a new map — required every 10 years after a national census — for the state’s six districts in Congress. That map, adopted by the Legislature’s GOP majority, would protect all five Republican incumbents but leave only one district in which a minority is likely to be elected, despite census figures putting the state’s Black population at around one-third of the total.
Legislators will vote on whether to override Edwards’ vetoes. If they fall short, they’ll draw up the map again, but it’s not clear if the political deals of February are going to hold.
The governor also allowed to become law, without his signature, bills drawing new maps for the state House and Senate. Those he also rightly criticized as failing to add even a single majority-minority district in a state where Black and other non-White populations are growing.
All politics? Well, yes. But other states are trying to make the decisions more informed and fair by requiring lawmakers to vote on new maps drawn by independent commissions.
That approach, as we have said many times, starts the process from the right place: new maps based not on political advantage but on more objective standards set out in law by the U.S. Voting Rights Act, and common sense.
When the Legislature gets back to its regular business, we hope members will pass some version of a better plan proposed by Rep. Cedric Glover, of Shreveport.
House Bill 562 would create a panel of citizens to bypass the endless political dealmaking that marked this year’s redistricting session.
Maybe it won’t work, but it’s better than the alternative, which is what we saw in February.
