From [HERE] As the dust cleared Thursday from a brutal post-census special session, Gov. Bobby Jindal (left) signed legislation creating new maps for Louisiana's congressional, legislative and Public Service Commission districts, setting the stage for civil rights lawyers at the U.S. Justice Department to review their revisions for their effects on minority voters.

The Legislative Black Caucus, meanwhile, announced that it will ask federal authorities not to approve plans that black lawmakers say do not adequately protect and enhance the voting strength of non-white voters who account for 34.3 percent of Louisiana's registered voter rolls.

"We have worked hard to ensure that the state's citizens' voting power was not diluted," the caucus said in a statement. "Despite our efforts, we believe the process was conducted in a manner that diminished minority voters' ability to select a candidate of their choice."

The statement said that Jindal and the Legislature decided to put "partisanship and incumbent protection" over compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Administration aides, legislative leaders and the sponsors of the redistricting bills -- all of them white -- said at the close of the session that they are satisfied that the plans will meet constitutional muster.

The major bones of contention are whether the state House plan should have included a 30th majority non-white, whether the Senate map's new majority non-white districts avoid gerrymandering concerns and whether the congressional plan should include a second minority district or at least another district with more minority voter strength. 

As it stands, the House plan has 29 majority African-American districts, up from the current 27. The Senate map has 11 majority African-American jurisdictions, up from 10, though Senate President Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, acknowledged during the session that the irregular shapes of two new districts resulted in no small part from efforts to protect neighboring incumbents.

The U.S. House plan, which realigned seven districts into six, maintains just one majority African-American district and makes black voters no more than a third of any remaining district. With a threatened veto from Jindal hovering over the process, lawmakers rejected versions that would have either added a second majority non-white district or made black voters account for as much as 42 percent of the electorate in one north Louisiana jurisdiction.

Chaisson and House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, said they hope to submit their chambers' respective plans to the Justice Deparment in the coming weeks. Attorney General Buddy Caldwell will be responsible for submitting the congressional map. Justice lawyers typically have up to 60 days from receipt to make a decision. If they reject the plan, they will return to the Legislature with their reasons, giving lawmakers another chance.

A best-case scenario is a swift approval. The worst-case scenario, at least for the legislative maps, is that the Legislature cannot craft a federally approved version in time for the Oct. 22 elections. That could result in a federal judge or federally appointed "master" drawing the lines. It also could mean postponement of the elections.The Legislature has more breathing room with the congressional plan, as those offices aren't on the ballot until next year.

Louisiana is one of the states that, based on an established history of voter discrimination and intimidation, must submit its new maps and any other election law changes for federal approval before the changes can take effect. Broadly speaking, voting rights lawyers judge whether plans have either a "discriminatory purpose" or a "discriminatory effect."

Section Five of the Voting Rights Act prohibits "retrogression," or reducing the strength of minority voters. It is this provision that ensured the 2nd Congressional district would continue to be a majority African-American district even though it required extending the lines to Baton Rouge to pick up enough population after the post-flood losses in Orleans and Jefferson parishes.

Section Two of the act is the trickier proposition. Some legislative lawyers and many Democrats said that the provisions compel legislators to craft, wherever possible, new minority districts or at least jurisdictions with enhanced minority voting strength. But many of the same attorneys and lawmakers noted that the law does not require maximizing the number of actual minority representatives. Other lawmakers hammered the fact that federal courts have frowned on racial gerrymandering.

Despite his stated confidence, Tucker, the Republican House speaker, more than once noted that 2011 marks the first time since the Voting Rights Act was adopted that a Democratic administration will preside over redistricting review. "No one knows what that means," he said before the March 20 opening gavel for the three-week special session.