How Baton Rouge’s Congressional Seat Was Stolen and Handed to Democrat Cleo Fields

By Woody Jenkins Editor St. George Leader

Dishonesty led the Louisiana Legislature to adopt a Congressional reapportionment plan that took away Baton Rouge’s seat in Congress and left Speaker of the House Mike Johnson in a very precarious position.

A Stolen Congressional Seat.  We in the Baton Rouge area had our Congressional seat stolen from us as a result of a deliberate falsehood perpetrated by Gov. Jeff Landry. 

The governor repeatedly told the legislature, the media, and the people of Louisiana that we were under a federal court order to create a second minority Congressional district.  That was simply not true! 

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In 2022, the Louisiana Legislature passed a plan reapportioning the Congressional districts from our state.  If President Trump were describing it, he would describe it as a “perfect plan” because it met all of the standards under the U.S. Constitution for a Congressional re-districting plan.

However, the plan was challenged. The NAACP and others filed suit, asking that a new minority seat be created.  The rationale of the suit was that Louisiana is 34 percent black and that we should have a proportionate number of black Congressmen from the state.

The only problem is, we don’t have proportionate representation in the United States. 

In any case, the Attorney General at the time, Jeff Landry, was defending the Louisiana Congressional apportionment plan.  He had a solid case and was defending it rigorously.

Federal District Judge Shelley Dick here in Baton Rouge didn’t like the plan.  However, the challenge to Louisiana’s Congressional reapportionment plan eventually made it to the United States Supreme Court.

Alabama vs. Louisiana. Two cases came to the Supreme Court at the same time — the Congressional reapportionment plan from Alabama and the Congressional reapportionment plan from Louisiana.

In Alabama, about 26 percent of the population is black.  In Louisiana, 34 percent of the population is black.  

The Supreme Court ruled that Alabama should have a second minority district.  Many people concluded that therefore Louisiana should have a second minority district.

However, the Supreme Court made it very clear why it was ordering a second black district in Alabama.

Compact Community. It’s not about 

the percentage of minorities in the state.  It’s  about whether there is a geographically compact minority community.  The jurisprudence is if you have a compact community of people who are minorities in sufficient numbers, then you must draw a minority district.

Racial Gerrymandering Prohibited. But the Supreme Court decisions have also made it clear that you cannot have a district that gerrymanders around the state picking out people based on race to create a Congressional district.

Alabama and Louisiana presented two different situations.  In Alabama, there was a large black population along I-20. The Supreme Court found that they had a community of interests and that they were entitled to a Congressional seat.

However, in looking at Louisiana, it found no such concentration of voters. Black voters are spread all over the state.  The Supreme Court did not order a second black district in Louisiana.

Instead, it sent the Louisiana case back to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for further consideration.

Since the challenge to Louisiana’s Congressional reapportionment plan had never even been to trial, it seemed obvious that a trial was in order.

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Back in the 1990’s, our friend Sen. Cleo Fields was elected to Congress when Edwin Edwards was governor.  Under Edwards, the legislature had created a racially gerrymandered district that allowed Fields to run and be elected from 1993 to 1994. However, that district was challenged and thrown out by the Supreme Court for racial gerrymandering.

Then once again, under Edwin Edwards, the legislature passed another Congressional district especially for Cleo Fields. This new district was ugly, to say the least.  It began in North Baton Rouge and wounded its way up the Red River all the way to Caddo Parish.  It was a snaky district and the epitome of racial gerrymandering.  It narrowed and bobbed and weaved, picking up majority black precincts wherever it could.  Congressman Fields was re-elected from that district for 1995 and 1996.

However, once again, his district was challenged on the basis of racial gerrymandering and again ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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An Alliance. The political alliance between Jeff Landry and Cleo Fields goes back at least to 2015 when Fields supported Landry for Attorney General against the incumbent, Buddy Caldwell.

While Cleo nominally supported the Democrat, Shawn Wilson, for governor in 2023, many have questioned how serious he was about supporting Wilson, especially since the street money that Cleo often directs, failed to appear for Wilson.  The result was an unexpected first primary win by Landry with 51 percent of the vote.

Key Committee. If there was any doubt about connections between Landry and Fields, those were erased in January 2024, when the new governor made sure Sen. Cleo Fields, a liberal Democrat, was appointed chairman of the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is in charge of reapportionment.

Imagine the fact that the Louisiana Senate has 27 Republican members and only 12 Democrats. 

Sen. Cleo Fields Placed in Charge of Reapportionment. One of the important things under Sen. Fields’ committee was reapportionment of Louisiana’s Congressional districts.  However, reapportionment of Congress was not necessary.  Louisiana had already adopted a solid reapportionment plan for Congress in 2022 as mentioned above.

Yet, in early 2024, as soon as he was inaugurated, Jeff Landry called a Special Session of the legislature. Amazingly, the first thing he did was call for passage of a bill to reapportion Louisiana’s Congressional districts.

He told the legislature, the media, and the people of the state that Louisiana had been ordered to create a second black district.  That was false.

Sen. Fields obliged, and his committee approved and the legislature obliged by adopting a new Congressional reapportionment plan of Sen. Fields liking.

A Miracle. On January 23, 2024, only three weeks after being inaugurated, Landry signed the bill to create a new Congressional district, which was miraculously almost identical to the Congressional district Fields represented back in 1995 and 1996. It stretched 200 miles from North Baton Rouge up the Red River to Shreveport in Caddo Parish.  Along the way, it meandered and found every possible black precinct, regardless of how contrived and distorted the map appeared.

The governor had changed. For two years and all during his campaign for governor in 2023, he firmly opposed a second black district.  Now suddenly he turned around, argued for it, and twisted arms to make sure it passed! 

During the special session of the legislature in early January 2024, several competing reapportionment bills came up in Senate committee.

Before Inauguration, I was asked by Treasurer John Fleming to be chairman of his transition committee, and I took that job seriously.  I interviewed the staff and analyzed the budget of Treasury and made recommendations to him.

Dr. Fleming asked me to serve as interim First Assistant Treasurer, the No. 2 person in the Treasury Department until we could find a permanent First Assistant.

When the Congressional reapportionment bills came up, I asked Dr. Fleming for permission to go down to the Senate committee and testify for information only on that legislation on my own time.  He agreed.

So I went down and provided the actual facts about the reapportionment legislation. The facts were that Louisiana had not been ordered to create a second black district. On the contrary, what had happened was the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered federal District Judge Shelly Dick here in Baton Rouge to hold a trial on the merits of the case, because there had never been a trial on the merits.

The 5th Circuit not only ordered Judge Dick to have a trial on the merits but they also said if she ruled against the state, she must give the state time to appeal such a decision.

The 5th Circuit did not in any way, shape or form order the State of Louisiana to create a second minority district.  But that’s what the governor told the people of the State.

After I testified, the governor called the Treasurer and asked him — no, told him — to fire me from my position as No. 2 in the Treasury.  

That was quite amazing since as Republican chairman of East Baton Rouge Parish, I had campaigned strongly for Jeff Landry for a solid year.  It was also amazing since we had editorialized strongly for Landry in newspapers.

A few weeks later, I wrote an editorial in the Central City News explaining it was not the right time to call a constitutional convention.  Again Jeff Landry called the Treasurer, Dr. John Fleming, and ordered him to fire me.

Of course, in both cases, the Treasurer refused to do that.

Remember this: when you have a dictator, you must be in alignment with him 100 percent of the time!  When people compare Jeff Landry with Huey Long, they are exactly right.

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The district created for Cleo Fields by the governor and the legislature is totally unconstitutional.

After the passage of the Cleo Fields’ plan, a group of citizens filed suit in federal court challenging the Fields’ plan as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.  That case, Callais v. Landry, alleged that the second black district drawn by Fields and pushed by Landry violated the 14th and 15th Amendments. In late 2024, a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Louisiana ruled that the Fields’ plan is in fact unconstitutional.

Callais v. Landry is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.  Landry and the attorney general to defend the unconstitutional law they helped pass.

On June 27, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court, announced that they are postponing a decision on what to do in Callais and will allow the parties to re-argue the case.

Meanwhile, Baton Rouge has lost its representation.  For over 70 years, the Capital region has had a Congressional district based around the Baton Rouge, giving us a voice in Congress.

Now Baton Rouge is divided into four different Congressional districts.  We no longer have much stroke or voice in Washington.

By the Supreme Court delaying until the next term, we will have the Cleo Fields Congressional district not for two years but for four years!

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Consider the national ramifications of what has happened in Louisiana.  In January 2024, our Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and our Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both from Louisiana, were operating with a one-to-three-vote majority. The governor took away a seat from that tiny Republican majority and took away Baton Rouge’s seat in Congress.

That one seat could decide what happens the next two years under President Trump — the last two years of his term.

It is of extreme importance that we have new representation in Congress.  It’s not a side issue.  It’s not a small thing. The destiny of our country when it comes to immigration or the war powers or the budget — all of those things are at stake.

Our Congress and our country are hanging by a thread while people here in Louisiana are playing games.

Texas is doing the right thing, but our governor and attorney general continue to press to keep the illegal, unconstitutional plan that they pushed through the Louisiana Legislature.