Black residents worry new Louisiana congressional district could be lost
in Supreme Court case
[October 14, 2025]
By SARA CLINE
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — For nearly three decades, the small town of
Mansfield was represented in Louisiana’s congressional delegation by
white Republicans, even though its population is about 80% Black and
leans heavily Democratic.
That changed with the election last year of U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, a
Black Democrat who was able to win after a newly drawn political map
carved out a second Black majority congressional district in the state.
Mansfield Mayor Thomas Jones Jr. said he and others finally feel as if
their communities are being represented in the nation’s capital.
“We feel connected, like we have somebody that’s helping us,” he said.
Fields’ seat, and what Jones describes as the benefits of having him in
Washington, might disappear depending on how the U.S. Supreme Court
rules in a case it will hear Wednesday.
The district Fields represents is the result of a hard-fought battle by
civil rights groups representing Black voters in the state. Leaders in
predominantly Black communities across the 218-mile-long
(350-kilometer-long) district said they feel he finally gives them a
voice to represent their needs.
But opponents say the district was unconstitutionally gerrymandered
based on race. If the court eventually rules in favor of the plaintiffs,
the decision could have a ripple effect far beyond this one district in
Louisiana. It potentially will kick out the last major pillar of the
60-year-old Voting Rights Act and prevent Black voters from challenging
political maps that dilute their influence.
Court rulings prompt state to draw new district
Louisiana’s new 6th Congressional District, which roughly traces the Red
River, runs across the state in a narrow, diagonal path. It stretches
from the state capital, Baton Rouge, in southern Louisiana to
Shreveport, in the state's northwest corner.
The district encompasses part or all of 10 parishes. It connects swaths
of the state that some argue are vastly different in their priorities,
geography, economies — even their gumbo recipes.
Fields is aware of criticism about the district's snakelike shape that
helped make it majority Black, but he argues that it's contiguous and
said all the state's congressional districts are geographically large,
representing both urban and rural areas. More importantly, he said, the
district gives "people of color an opportunity, not a guarantee, to
elect a candidate of their choice.”
“You tell me I have to jump a certain height, I can work on that. You
tell me I’ve got to run faster, I can work on that as well," he said.
"But you tell me I got to be white, there’s nothing I can do about
that.”
In 2022, Louisiana’s GOP-dominated Legislature drew congressional
boundaries that maintained one Black majority district and five mostly
white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third
Black. A federal judge later struck down the map for violating the
Voting Rights Act, and in a major case the following year the Supreme
Court found that Alabama had to create its own second majority Black
congressional district.
Rather than being forced to have a judge draw its map, the
Republican-controlled Louisiana Legislature and its Republican governor
passed the current map that created a second Black majority district.
Black residents now account for 54% of registered voters in Fields'
district, up from 24% under the previous boundaries.
A congressman who ‘understands the plight of our people’
Throughout much of the South, older Black residents still remember Jim
Crow-era methods around voting such as literacy tests and poll taxes
that were designed to disenfranchise them.
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Students and a member of the Zulu Tramps march to a campus polling
place on Election Day at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La.,
Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)
In Louisiana, civil rights groups argued that the lack of a second
majority minority congressional district was a modern-day effort to
dilute Black voting strength. For decades, with a brief exception in
the 1990s, Louisiana had just one majority Black district.
“It almost feels like when you only have one Black congressman, that
he’s a congressman for everybody that’s African American in the
state,” said state Rep. Denise Marcelle, a Black Democrat in East
Baton Rouge Parish.
When the second majority Black district was being created, some
leaders said it didn't necessarily matter whether their area was
included in it. That it existed at all was more important.
“I’m not married, necessarily, to the current makeup of the maps.
... I’m not even married to the representative being Congressman
Fields,” said Baton Rouge Councilman Cleve Dunn Jr., a Black
Democrat. “We just knew with having a second congressional district
represent a minority population, then the person who sits in that
seat will represent the values of the Congressional Black Caucus.
That’s the important thing.”
Dunn said he had a rapport with the Republican who represented the
district before it was redrawn and said he was accessible. But he
also saw the world politically in a different way, Dunn said.
“We feel positive that we have a representative who understands the
plight of our people, the need of our people, and is going to fight
for things for our people,” he said.
Making Congress deliver for the district
Community leaders in Fields' district listed an array of needs:
supplying low-income housing, protecting and expanding Medicaid,
keeping rural hospitals open, addressing food deserts and providing
money for community centers and other infrastructure.
Some said the benefits have been tangible in the short time Fields
has been in office — from helping residents access Social Security
benefits to working toward securing federal funding for local
projects. Several people mentioned Fields' visibility in the
district.
“The key thing, quite frankly, that I have done in the past nine
months is to connect Congress to the people," Fields said.
Jones, the mayor of Mansfield, said during his nearly 20 years
working in local government, he can’t recall a time a congressman
held a town hall meeting in his community. Fields has held three.
Among the priorities for the town of 4,000 has been obtaining grant
money to fix and replace its ailing sewage system, which backs up in
people's homes and overflows into the streets when it rains.
Jones said he has been asking for funding for five years. While the
town has received limited money that was used to make patchwork
repairs, he said with Fields’ help it is in line to be approved for
a grant next year that he hopes will solve the system's problems.
It was the first time Jones could recall any member of Congress
reaching out to say they might be able to make some appropriations
and to ask for a list of the town's priorities.
“I feel like he’s reaching down to make sure that someone knows our
needs and gets us some help," Jones said.
___
Associated Press writer Gary Fields in Washington contributed to
this report.
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