Louisiana lawmakers advanced a congressional map on Thursday that would eliminate one of the state’s two majority-Black congressional districts, moving Republicans one step closer to securing a 5-1 advantage in the state’s House delegation ahead of the midterms.

The state Senate voted 27-10 to approve Senate Bill 121, a GOP-backed proposal that would largely restore Louisiana’s 2022 congressional map, created before Louisiana added a second majority-Black district following court challenges under the Voting Rights Act.

The proposal would dismantle the 6th Congressional District currently represented by Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields and redraw it into a Republican-leaning seat.

The map would leave Louisiana with a single majority-Black congressional district: the New Orleans-centered 2nd District represented by Democratic Rep. Troy Carter.  

Fields’ current Baton Rouge-to-Shreveport district would be replaced with a more conservative district anchored in predominantly white areas around Baton Rouge and south Louisiana. The remaining majority-Black district would stretch from New Orleans into parts of Baton Rouge, potentially pitting Fields and Carter against each other in the same Democratic district.

Republican state Sen. Jay Morris, who sponsored the proposal, openly acknowledged during Thursday’s floor debate that the districts were designed to maximize Republican advantage.

“It is perfectly fine for us to redraw maps based upon politics. These maps are drawn to maximize Republican advantage for the incumbent Republicans that we have in Congress at the present time,” Morris said.

“We can protect current Republican incumbents. We can also create a performing Democratic district that draws in as many Democrats as possible in order to protect those Republican incumbents,” he added.

Democrats condemned the proposal during the hourslong debate as racial gerrymandering and a major rollback of Black political representation in a state where Black residents make up roughly one-third of the population.

“You cannot do racial gerrymandering in order to get a part of a partisan outcome. That is still illegal, and that’s what this map does,” Democratic state Sen. Sam Jenkins said during floor debate. “This 5-1 map is a political power grab.”

“I think that District 6 dilutes the Black vote down a 25%,” Democratic state Sen. Sidney Barthelemy said on Thursday. “If you do the math, and I think with that in mind, it certainly uses race, via the party to dilute the black vote.”