With just two months to go before the US midterm elections, the battle for votes is in full swing. Our reporter Fanny Allard has been to the state of Louisiana, where a redistricting row is playing out with far-reaching implications for racial equality.
On April 29, the US Supreme Court issued a landmark decision: by a 6-to-3 majority, it invalidated the electoral map adopted in 2024 in Louisiana, which had granted a second majority-Black district to the state, located between Shreveport and Baton Rouge. The court ruled that it was not legal to draw districts based on racial criteria.
Lawmakers in Louisiana’s legislature immediately adopted a new map that dilutes the 6th Congressional District into neighbouring majority-White constituencies.
This change is not only expected to automatically grant an extra seat to Republicans in the November midterm elections, but it is also being seen as a fundamental setback for Black representation in the United States.
Watch moreResidents of Louisiana’s ‘cancer alley’ suffering from industrial pollution
Two visions of equality are at odds here. For the Republicans, we should be able to move beyond the issue of skin colour and apply the same rules to everyone. For the Democrats, discrimination is still too deeply ingrained in society for race to be ignored.
Sixty years after the Voting Rights Act, can racial divisions in the US truly be healed by refusing to see race?
