Justice decision right on mark
posted Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 @ 1:11 pm

Louisiana received some good news this week when the Justice Department informed Attorney General Buddy Caldwell that Justice had no objection to the redistricting plans the Legislature approved for the state's congressional and Public Service Commission districts.

Redrawing the state's congressional and Public Service Commission districts occurred during a special legislative session earlier this year. It was a rather controversial special session that also resulted in the Legislature redrawing its own districts. Tempers flared during the special session as lawmakers argued over which incumbents in the Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives would benefit from redistricting versus those who would be short-changed by it.

At the very least, the special session on redistricting added fuel to the fire over the argument that the Legislature should be removed from the redistricting process in favor of an independent panel handling it. That's another topic for another day, though.

Redistricting was necessary to reflect changes in population in Louisiana over the past 10 years. We learned about those changes thanks to the 2010 Census. The Census showed Louisiana's population grew at a snail's pace over the past decade.