BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana House approved a congressional redistricting plan on Thursday that would eliminate a majority-Black congressional district represented by Democrat Cleo Fields. The plan requires only a final Senate vote, which could occur Friday, before it goes to Republican Gov. Jeff Landry.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map in a late April 2026 ruling, finding it an illegal racial gerrymander. That map had created a second majority-Black district stretching more than 200 miles from Baton Rouge to Shreveport, leading to the election of Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields.

The new redistricting plan scraps Fields’ district and clusters its areas around predominantly white communities in the Baton Rouge region and southern Louisiana. It also adds part of Baton Rouge to a heavily Democratic, majority-Black district based in New Orleans currently represented by Democratic Rep. Troy Carter.

State Rep. Beau Beaullieu, a Republican who chairs the House redistricting committee, said, “We drew this map in an effort to safely maximize Republican strength.” Beaullieu added that Republicans rejected a map aiming to win all six U.S. House seats because it would have added more Democratic voters to Republican-held districts, potentially allowing Democrats to win two or three seats.

Republican U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins denounced the redistricting plan in a social media post as a “Frankenstein-looking thing” and an “insanely bad map.” Three Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the measure in the House.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led the Supreme Court to strike down the 2024 map have threatened further litigation, arguing the new plan still includes only one majority-Black district. Democratic state Rep. Edmond Jordan, chair of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, warned that “drawing a map around partisanship would produce exactly the racial results that the Constitution forbids,” citing the close link between party affiliation and race in Louisiana.

Gov. Jeff Landry had postponed Louisiana’s May 16 U.S. House primary to later in the summer to allow time for redistricting before the end of the legislative session.