US House Redistricting: Louisiana

[Verily]

Louisiana (on the 2009 ACS, so this will have to change slightly for the Census as Orleans Parish was overestimated in the ACS). Two Cajun seats, two Northern seats, one black seat, no problems. The key was to put a bunch of Jefferson Parish in with LA-03. LA-02 is 57% black.

[Verily]

The conventional wisdom here seems to be that the VRA district must extend all the way to Baton Rouge. I just made one that's 53% black and only extends up to take in parts of Iberville and Ascension Parishes. I used 2009 ACS, but something like that should still end up being majority VAP black by census numbers, right?

Probably not. The ACS ended up way overestimating New Orleans' population. The VRA seat is going to have to go into Baton Rouge.

[Verily]

You can do a second black-majority seat by doing something like NC-12. Go along I-49 and US-167 to connect from New Iberia, through Lafayette, Alexandria and Natchitoches all the way to Shreveport. You'll need to create an arm out to either Lake Charles or Monroe to finish it, but it's a little bit neater than the 90s version (which was drawn in quite so convoluted a fashion in part to ensure that the surrounding districts remained sufficiently Democratic to elect more Democratic congressman).