The prospects for drawing new maps for the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board in time for fall elections have dimmed as the board has yet to schedule a date to consider a set of proposals — the second batch it has received in the past year — from demographic firms interested in creating the new maps.
This week, an attorney for the school system formally urged the parish’s Registrar of Voters Steve Raborn to reinstate Plan 22, a set of maps drawn in 2022 that was immediately challenged in court.
In October, Raborn told The Advocate that as it stood, his office was set to run for a fourth time with a nine-member map approved in 2014. That map, which relied on data from the 2010 U.S. Census, was used in 2022 due to litigation that year for what was supposed to be its final run. Using it again in 2026 would likely prompt a court challenge, since many individual districts are out of whack in terms of size because of population shifts since the census data was collected.
However, Raborn said he would replace that 2014 map with a new one if and when he heard from the school system.
That has happened.
On Friday, Raborn said he received a letter Wednesday from Nathan Long, an attorney representing the school system, telling him to replace the 2014 maps with Plan 22. Raborn said the letter was prompted by a phone call he made the week before to the board’s General Counsel Gwynn Shamlin seeking clarity on the matter.
Long, with the Hammonds Sills Adkins Guice Noah & Perkins law firm, told Raborn that Plan 22 had ultimately cleared the litigation brought against it.
“As a result, Plan 22 is the controlling plan for purposes of administering the forthcoming School Board elections,” Long wrote.
Shamlin justified that letter to Raborn as consistent with law and said he informed the entire board when it was sent. The May 2022 vote approving Plan 22, he noted, was the last time the board officially approved district maps.
“It was the last action taken by the board," Shamlin said.
He said the board is free to replace Plan 22 with a new map later if it chooses to.
Plan 22, if it had gone into effect in 2022, likely would have preserved the 5-4 White-Black balance on the board and could have even expanded it to a 6-3 White-Black margin. Opponents of the plan have pressed for maps that better reflect the increasing racial diversification of East Baton Rouge Parish as evident in the 2020 U.S. Census.
The fall 2022 election, run with the 2014 map, ended up preserving the board’s 5-4 White/Black racial balance, though just barely. Incumbent Mark Bellue, who is White, won reelection by only 21 votes against a heavily outspent Black opponent.
Only three incumbents won re-election. Six new board members took office in January 2023, none of whom participated in the creation of Plan 22.
In November 2023, the School Board approved an offer aimed at ending the litigation: they agreed to "provide for the development of a board reapportionment and redistricting plan" if the legal case was dismissed. The following June, the plaintiffs had the litigation dismissed.
The hunt for a redistricting firm to create such a plan only got underway this spring, and the board voted in August to toss out the applications and try again. in time for a Nov. 5 deadline.
The firms that applied before — Kenner-based Data Center and Virginia-based CensusChannel — applied again. The third proposal was submitted by LA Government Strategies, a Baton Rouge entity led by local attorney Dannie Garrett. Garrett has worked under contract in the past with Strategic Demographics, the firm that drew the 2014 map.
The School Board has yet to consider the three proposals. The earliest opportunity is a special meeting scheduled for Jan. 8.
Qualifying for the Nov. 3 School Board elections begins July 29, about eight months from now.
Of the nine current members, only Bellue, who is finishing his third term, is barred from running again.
St. George is another complicating factor. A proposed constitutional amendment to create a new St. George school district with the same boundaries as the city is on the May 16 ballot. If approved, that new district would not go into effect until July 2027, eight months after the fall East Baton Rouge Parish School Board elections.
Shamlin told The Advocate in July said the board is weighing whether to pursue redistricting right away or to wait until voters have spoken on St. George.