State Rep. Fontenot Explains the Redistricting Process and What it Means for Terrebonne & Lafourche

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Louisiana State Representative District 55 Bryan Fontenot

Louisiana State Representative District 55 Bryan Fontenot recently explained the redistricting process which will be going into session in February 2022.


 

Fontenot explained that redistricting happens every ten years. The process should have happened last year, but because of Census numbers not being available due to COVID, they will be going into a special session at the beginning of February. He explained the responsibilities of the legislative bodies are to redistrict or fix the districts for House Members, Senate Districts, Supreme Court Justices, BESE, and the United States Congress. “It’s going to be the largest fight in the last seven to eight years in Louisiana to figure out where these lines should fall,” he said. He noted that Terrebonne and Lafourche have seen significant changes in redistricting. He said twelve to fourteen years ago they had a Bayou Region Congressional District that represented the area in Washington D.C. He explained that ten years ago, that district was split, which Congressman Graves and Congressman Scalise now represent. “It’s going to be a lot of test of will and going in to challenge legislators to get this correct,” he stated. 

 

He further explained how crucial the process is and that redistricting allocates the number of people that each representative serves. He said particularly in the House of Representatives, each legislator should represent around 44,300 people on average. One of the first things he’s noticed is that in the past twenty or thirty years, there has been a trend of decreasing populations in the lower areas of Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes which can be attributed to various issues such as a disappearing coastline, areas that cannot be developed, and job fields diminishing. He said when you look at the oil and gas industry and the jobs that are available, they are no longer here, especially in lower Lafourche. “We’re still blue-collar, we’re still the energy port of America, but those high-paying educated engineering jobs have left,” he noted. 

 

He further explained that across the nation there is an average population growth of about seven and a half percent, however, in Louisiana, we are only at two and a half percent. Our neighboring state Texas is at a whopping 15.8 percent growth rate. He said this leads to the assumption that our population is moving into other states where high-paying jobs are available, consisting of areas that aren’t affected by natural disasters and floods. All of these factors, he said, impact the redistricting process because it is driven by population. He noted that in Lafourche there was a slight increase in population, however, in Terrebonne, a small percentage of the population was lost. He reported that just in the House of Representatives, only five people represent Lafourche and Terrebonne, of which only two (himself and Representative Zeringue), have gained population. Representative Orgeron in South Lafourche and Representative Magee in South Terrebonne have lost a “significant population,” he said.


 

He said one of the biggest challenges they face is redistricting the congressional seats. In the state of Louisiana, we have six congressmen that work in the United States House of Representatives. “We have enough population that can sustain the six right now,” he said. This led him to mention a comment by Governor Edwards that we should have two of those representatives carved out to represent minority communities. He said as of today, there is one, Congressman Carter, who represents New Orleans along with Baton Rouge and Mississippi River corridor areas. He said, “This is a fair, non-biased, redistricting process that is driven by data and it is driven by what the people responded to in the Census.” He then explained the process that is in place for redistricting. Once a body of government approves a bill for redistricting, it must go to the governor for his signature. If the governor vetoes a redistricting bill, and the legislature doesn’t have the votes to override the veto, it will be the first time in Louisiana history that the Supreme Court will be charged with conducting the redistricting process.

 

“I think it’s a big fight, you gotta understand also that both chambers in the statehouse are controlled by Republicans, and not just controlled, it’s nearly a two-thirds majority in both chambers, so it’s a steep hill to climb and a short period to climb it,” he said,” because we were so far behind in COVID numbers and getting the Census back, we have a short time frame to accomplish a big task.”