Levka"Louisiana postpones primaries as states rush to redraw districts after supreme court ruling
More governors call for special sessions following supreme court’s decision severely weakening Voting Rights Act
Louisiana moved to postpone its May primaries on Thursday in a move that came as other southern states are also scrambling to redraw congressional districts in response to the supreme court’s Wednesday ruling that severely weakened the landmark Voting Rights Act.
Before the supreme court’s decision, eliminating a key protection against racial discrimination in drawing voting maps, some states had already begun initiating processes to redraw districts and gut Black voting power. More states have now followed, with governors calling for special sessions to redraw congressional districts, potentially before the midterm elections in November.
Louisiana governor Jeff Landry and attorney general Liz Murrill, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that the state can no longer use its current districts to carry out the primaries after the supreme court ruling. Early voting had been scheduled to begin Saturday in advance of the 16 May primary.
(. . .)
While it’s unclear how many states will be able to redraw their maps before the November midterm elections given that filing deadlines and in some cases primaries have passed in many states, Republicans are expected to take extreme measures to move quickly.
(. . .)
Before the ink on the justices’ decision had dried, Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature, called back into a special session by governor Ron DeSantis in recent weeks, passed new congressional maps to deliver four more seats to the Republican party. The map, which was already in process before the Supreme Court decision, gives Republicans the advantage for 24 of the state’s 28 House seats.
'DeSantis’s extreme new gerrymander was drawn behind closed doors because he knows the voters overwhelmingly oppose this partisan power grab,' John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement. 'Instead of standing up for their constituents, Florida Republicans have just voted to silence millions of Floridians in service of Donald Trump’s plot to steal the 2026 midterm elections.'
While Florida advanced the issue of redistricting further than any other state since the supreme court’s ruling, other Republican-controlled states seemed poised to follow."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/30/states-redistricting-maps-voting-rights-act
Gizmodo
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Associated Press
Steve Herman