DeSoto voters: Police Jury gerrymandered district lines, lawsuit filed

MANSFIELD, La. – Twelve DeSoto Parish voters have filed suit against the DeSoto Police Jury, alleging its reapportionment plan was gerrymandered based on race in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

That action, the plaintiffs contend, did not take into consideration the vast growth in the north DeSoto Parish area. The plan retained five majority-Black districts in Mansfield, which has lost considerable population, according to the 2020 census count.

In addition to the lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Shreveport, the plaintiffs ask for an injunction to stop this fall’s election until the court decides the case. There’s been no ruling on that yet.

The Police Jury will meet in a special closed-door session Wednesday to discuss the lawsuit.

“While actions often speak louder than words, the DeSoto Parish Police Jury recently used both clear words of racial motivation followed by consistent action in enacting its gerrymandered redistricting plan for DeSoto Parish, Louisiana. In doing so, defendants have spoken loudly and clearly. The Police Jury has now twice attempted to draw gerrymandered boundaries with the predominant motivation of preserving five majority-Black police jury districts anchored in the City of Mansfield. The Police Jury repeatedly communicated its racially motivated intent openly on the public record, and then acted in accordance with that design in enacting an egregiously gerrymandered map that abandoned traditional districting principles in a mission to maintain five racially motivated majority-Black districts,” the plaintiffs said in their lawsuit.

“The DeSoto Parish Police Jury did so in the face of substantial population growth in the majority-White northern portion of the parish and a population decline in majority-Black Mansfield, and against the advice of its own Parish counsel who repeatedly and publicly warned them that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 … did not justify drawing lines based on race without actual proof, rather than a mere allegation, of a Voting Rights Act violation. … Indeed, the Fourteenth Amendment strictly prohibits local governments from sorting individuals with race as the predominant purpose in this manner,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit is not unexpected. The plaintiffs filed a complaint with the Police Jury last fall after its first plan was adopted in April.

Demographer Mike Hefner admitted to police jurors districts on the north end of the parish were overpopulated in contrast to districts on the south end, where population declined. But he said his plan was to ensure minority representation on the Police Jury did not decline.

According to the 2020 census, DeSoto Parish has a population of 26,812, with 15,284 (57%) white and 9,973 (37.19%) black.

Stonewall’s population increased by 25.3%, while the City of Mansfield’s population dropped to 4,714, declining by 5.7% since 2010.

The Police Jury rescinded its first reapportionment plan in December. And Hefner proposed a new map. It still left the northern end of the parish overpopulated.

District Attorney Charles Adams, who serves as the Police Jury’s legal counsel, told police jurors protecting incumbents and preventing minority retrogression were insufficient reasons to justify moving population out of districts based on race. He stressed the importance of realizing the parish’s population was changing and districts needed to shift northward more than what was reflected in the first map.

Several police jurors disagreed. Ernel Jones read information from the NAACP that said eliminating one of the five Black districts would put the Police Jury in jeopardy because the lines had previously been approved by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Police Jury continued with on and off talks about other redistricting plans in January. By February, three plans were put before the panel – one from its paid demographer, one from a former demographer and a third from a demographer engaged by the plaintiffs.

The Police Jury voted 7 to 4 to adopt a second plan – the revised one prepared by its demographer -- on April 10. While some tweaks were made, the map still maintained the five Black districts centered out of Mansfield.

Four of the five majority Black districts have population totals below the ideal of 2,437 per district. “Voting strength is enhanced when a district’s total population is lower because voters in those districts are overweighted in each case compared to the other districts in the parish,” the plaintiffs said.

The lawsuit includes copies of color-coded maps that in some cases show an example of a “bizarrely-shaped” district and concluded that race was predominate in its drawing. Another district was described as an “isolated tendril shape,” while yet another was called “suspicious” because of its “unwieldy, geographically spread-out boundaries.”

The lawsuit is expected to move swiftly through the court system because of the upcoming election cycle. Qualifying for the Police Jury’s fall elections is Aug. 8-10, with the election on Oct. 14.

If the Police Jury fails to adopt a plan consistent with a court order, then the plaintiffs ask the court to draw constitutionally compliant districts.  

Attorneys representing the plaintiffs include Reid A. Jones of Wiener, Weiss & Madison in Shreveport and the law firm of Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak in Washington, D.C.