By Tammara Estes, Ph.D.
Statistician and Environmental Scientist
DSCC District 79A Representative
The voting district maps as drawn by self-dealing partisans in the Louisiana Legislature will fail, one way or another.
Gov. John Bel Edwards may veto them, as he should. But even if Edwards approves or the legislature overrides him, the maps face legal doom:
The maps violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
Lawsuits will follow these maps. And if effectively argued based on statistics, demographics and population shifts in the 2020 census, those lawsuits should prevail. Courts will have to reject our legislature’s political concoctions.
I’m a Ph.D-level statistician, and I’ve testified in legal proceedings. I’m familiar with the federal rules for fair apportionment, the 2020 Louisiana census numbers, the loss of population in western and northern rural parts of Louisiana, the population gain in the urban southeast, and the major legal issue with the proposed voting maps.
In terms important to the courts, the maps show malapportionment -- over-representation of voters in some areas, under-representation in others. That includes state Senate and House districts and Congressional districts -- where legislators would maintain just one majority-minority district out of six for Louisiana’s black population, roughly one-third of state voters and growing.
The process of legislators drawing their own maps represents a conflict, since their elected offices are directly impacted. Instead of drawing maps according to rules and demographics, legislators have fixated on preserving political power and keeping certain incumbents in office.
Arguments made in the Statehouse to justify these unlawful, unfair, unjust maps are neither accurate nor relevant.
Uncertainty in the census data? The margin of error is much smaller than the malapportionment percentage in districts that are over- or under-represented.
Incumbency? This has nothing to do with fair districting. Protecting some anointed legislators is a political maneuver and should not affect how maps are drawn.
Dilution of minority votes if two majority-minority Congressional Districts are created? While there may be some effect, it’s unlikely to change the overall voting results given the demographics. And narrowing the candidates running for the same office would offer protection against dilution. That’s an issue to be worked out locally, not used as a political ploy by legislators to maintain one majority-minority district.
The only voting maps to survive the legislative process and the governor’s review should be fair, just and legally sound, based on numbers and demographics -- not politics. Otherwise, legislators will have to draw the maps again.