Senate Governmental Affairs Committee advances amended SB 407 map; hours of testimony urge two opportunity districts

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee on May 12 advanced an amended congressional map, Senate Bill 407, after adopting two amendment sets and hearing more than five hours of public testimony from elected officials, advocates and residents.

Senator Gary Price, the bill author, told the committee the amended map is drawn to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court guidance cited in the hearing (referred to repeatedly in the record as the “Calais” decision) while preserving traditional redistricting criteria such as compactness, contiguity and parish integrity. “The map does all this without using race to draw a line,” Price said, adding the plan creates two districts where Black voters should have an opportunity to elect a candidate of choice while keeping most cities and parishes whole.

The committee first adopted a technical amendment package, amendment set 36-32, to update statutory dates and timing. Members then adopted amendment set 35-84, which staff described as the updated map language. Senator Jenkins moved both amendments and, in each case, the chair stated there were no objections and the amendments were adopted.

Committee members pressed the author and staff on whether the map relied on race and whether the revisions satisfied the Court’s direction. Senator DuPlessis asked whether the Court had required the legislature to redraw maps at this moment; Price said it had not, and several senators raised concerns about timing and voter confusion because early voting had already occurred. Committee staff entered Secretary of State early-voting and absentee statistics into the record and also confirmed that, per the record, no ballots had been counted prior to election day.

The hearing then shifted to a lengthy public-comment period. Dozens of speakers, including former and current legislators, civil-rights advocates and local residents, urged the committee to advance a map that preserves two “opportunity” districts for Black voters. Former committee chair Karen Carter Peterson said the Price map “meets all of the redistricting principles” and argued that preserving meaningful representation serves equal-protection and freedom-of-association interests. Melissa Flournoy, who described herself as a former legislator and board chair of 10,000 Women Louisiana, urged senators to “vote for a 4-2 map.” Josiah Hardy, a student who identified himself as the founder of Project 2028, said the issue “directly impacts the future my generation will inherit.”

Advocacy organizations voiced similar warnings. Mike Moscow of the Southern Poverty Law Center said alternatives that do not approximate a four-two framework would “dilute political power” and weaken representative democracy. Several witnesses pointed to data and registration figures and asked that staff reconcile differences between the numbers presented with the Secretary of State’s public data.

Other witnesses, including defenders of the amended map, emphasized competitiveness and the practical effect of how voters are grouped. A smaller set of speakers argued technical points about packing and cracking — describing scenarios in which concentrating Black voters into fewer districts could reduce their influence in adjacent districts — and urged alternative mapping approaches that would spread influence more evenly.

No final committee vote to report the bill to the full Senate was recorded in the transcript provided; the record shows the committee amended and discussed the bill and then moved into an extended public-comment session. The committee entered multiple speakers’ statements into the record and signaled plans to continue consideration and (by the end of the record) to take up opposing red-card testimony.

What happens next: The committee adopted amendment sets to SB 407 and left the bill at the committee stage pending further business; the record does not show the committee reporting the bill to the Senate floor during the transcript provided. Several senators asked staff for follow-up on early ballots, candidate qualifying and the implications for candidates if district lines change before the election.