DPPJ votes to seek resolution in federal gerrymander lawsuit

MANSFIELD, La. – DeSoto Parish police jurors agreed Monday night to explore an “amicable resolution” to a pending federal gerrymander lawsuit.

When 10 of the 11 police jurors emerged from a closed-door session, Police Juror Jimmy Holmes offered a motion to consult with the plaintiffs and stop the litigation. The vote was unanimous and without further discussion.

That’s an about face from a meeting last month when the panel took no public action after an executive session, appearing to signal it intended to defend the lawsuit.

A group of DeSoto Parish voters filed suit in May 2023, accusing the governing body of using race to gerrymander its new election lines that were redrawn after the 2020 Census. The lawsuit was put on hold last fall at the plaintiffs’ request while waiting on a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in the Louisiana v. Callais case.

The high court ruled in April that the state’s congressional redistricting map was unconstitutional because race was used as the primary factor in drawing the district boundaries. The plaintiffs contend the same is true of the Police Jury's lines. 

U.S. District Judge Jerry Edwards Jr. held a Zoom scheduling conference with the plaintiffs’ attorneys and the Police Jury’s attorneys last week and set an Oct. 13 bench trial for the case. There will be a pre-trial conference on Oct. 1.

Additionally, Edwards set Friday as a deadline for the plaintiffs to file a motion for a summary judgment, seeking a favorable ruling ruling in their favor and to settle the matter without a trial. The defendants have a July 15 deadline to file their motion for summary judgment.

In their motion, the plaintiffs said DeSoto’s case is a “textbook example of gerrymandering.” For more than 20 years, the Police Jury has maintained five majority Black districts through three redistricting cycles. Each time, the parish treated the racial composition of those districts as a fixed requirement, the motion states.

Cedric Floyd, a consultant responsible for the 2000 and 2010 redistricting maps, testified during a hearing last year that maintaining the five Black districts was a baseline requirement. Michael Hefner was hired to draw the new maps based on the 2020 Census, and he also said maintaining five majority-minority districts was a requirement across all 18 versions of his plan.

“Multiple police jurors publicly declared reducing the number of Black districts was impermissible,” the motion states.

That was despite a warning from District Attorney Charles Adams, who serves as the Police Jury’s legal counsel, that drawing district lines based on race without a proven Voting Rights Act violation was unconstitutional. The Police Jury disregarded Adams and adopted the plan on a 7 to 4 vote.

Population breakdown

The plaintiffs provided information showing the parish’s Black population at about 37 percent while the parish continued to maintain five majority Black districts. The city of Mansfield contains 17.58% of the parish’s population, with a Black population of 78.3% and white population of 15.42%.

Between 2010 and 2020, the parish experienced huge demographic shifts, according to demographer Gary Joiner, who said in a July 2023 hearing that DeSoto Parish was one of 19 parishes that grew in population, with most of the growth being on the north end, near and around Stonewall. The population center has migrated steadily north and west from Mansfield along U.S. Highway 171.

The plaintiffs said Floyd’s testimony about the 2000 cycle illustrates the priority given to racial composition over other considerations.

Joiner independently confirmed Floyd’s 2010 plan “ignored all generally accepted redistricting principles and used race as the dominant factor,” the motion states.

Hefner had the five Black districts already pre-programs into his software and said maintaining the five Black districts was a non-negotiable requirement, the motion noted.

At a February 2023 Police Jury meeting, Adams again warned, “when you start making district lines and placing voters in districts simply because of their race … you can only do that if there is a compelling reason based upon a proven VRA violation, not just the assertion of it.”

The enacted plan

The summary motion states that the Police Jury’s enacted plan has characteristics consistent with racial gerrymandering. First, the district shapes are non-compact and irregular and deviate from the geographic contours of the communities within the parish.

Second, voting precincts are split along racial lines. Precincts with mixed-race populations were divided between districts to increase Black population percentages in targeted districts.

Third, the majority Black districts are underpopulated relative to the majority white districts, with the plan overemphasizing Mansfield’s population at the “direct expense” of the Republican voting majority in north DeSoto.

The plaintiffs, through Joiner, produced a map that demonstrates all legitimate redistrict objectives can be achieved with only four majority Black districts, proving that the fifth district is explained by race, not incumbency, according to the motion.

The motion states Joiner’s plan is considered race-neutral and satisfies each of Hefner’s own six stated redistricting criteria. It achieves a total deviation of 9.68%, satisfying one person, one vote. It splits the city of Mansfield into two districts, not five. It protects all incumbents and keeps small towns and villages whole, including Grand Cane, Stonewall and Gloster.

Conclusion

The motion for summary judgment states that that race was the predominant factor in the current plan’s design. Despite the district attorney’s repeated warnings that maps based upon race were unconstitutional, the parish’s map-drawer was adamant that maintaining five majority-Black districts was non-negotiable, a racial mandate the Police Jurors publicly advocated for at meetings and ultimately enacted into law.

The circumstantial evidence, including bizarre district shapes, racially targeted precinct splits, systematically imbalanced population deviations, and the district by-district configurations of each majority-Black district, confirms what the direct evidence proves, the motion states.

“Plaintiffs’ alternative map demonstrates that the parish’s legitimate objectives could have been achieved without racial sorting. After Callais, Voting Rights Act compliance cannot justify racial gerrymandering as a matter of law, and no other compelling interest has been offered. Plaintiffs are entitled to judgment as a matter of law and request that the court grant their request for summary judgment,” the motion states.