This past week, chaos and protests broke out in statehouses as Republicans and Democrats race to draw new congressional maps. What is usually an arcane process has become an unprecedented political free-for-all.

At stake is control of Congress in November's midterm elections. With a razor thin margin, both parties are rushing to draw new lines, hoping to tilt the House of Representatives in their favor.

Adding fuel to the fire: a landmark Supreme Court decision 11 days ago found a congressional map in Louisiana was unconstitutional. The court said legislators relied too heavily on race to draw the lines. And that's where we went. Louisiana's Republican governor and his party are already moving to carve out new districts and many Black voters we met fear their district will be wiped off the map.

Town hall pastor: I just don't understand why there is nobody able to stop this train. You see all the wrong. You see-- it's-- it's racist. You know it.

This past Monday, it was a packed house at the Galilee Baptist church, the spiritual anchor to the west side of Shreveport, where for many, the memories of Jim Crow run deep.

One by one, the constituents lined up with questions about the fate of their congressional district. Their Democratic congressman, Cleo Fields, didn't have many answers.

Rep. Cleo Fields: Sometimes you get a setback to be set up. I mean, don't underestimate that power of the vote. That's what they are tryin' to take away.

Congressman Fields has served the people of Louisiana for most of his life. First elected to the House of Representatives in 1992, he lost, then won again in never ending redistricting battles. Now, he could be facing another loss. 

Cecilia Vega: You believe this will not be your seat when and if this map is redrawn.

Rep. Cleo Fields: I think it's highly unlikely.

Cecilia Vega: You have said this is not about you, your job, the seat that you hold personally.

Rep. Cleo Fields: I'm just occupying the seat, and that's one of the things people get confused with, when there's a voting rights seat created it guarantees a Black an election. No. It doesn't guarantee a Black anything. It just gives a Black an opportunity to win an election. And that's why they even passed the Voting Rights Act. 

The 1965 Voting Rights Act was created to protect minority voting power. In Louisiana, which has one of the highest percentages of Black residents in the country – about 30 percent - there has never been a Black politician elected to Congress in a district where Whites are in the majority.

The recent Supreme Court ruling virtually gutted the landmark legislation, but some say it's time has passed.

Cecilia Vega: There are conservative African Americans, who've spoken out in recent days and they have praised this court's ruling and they say that there's proof of real racial progress.

Rep. Cleo Fields: Oh, there is progress in the nation, you know. But-- but-- but there is not progress in the southern part of our country to the extent that you should do away with the Voting Rights Act. You-- you tell those same folk to come here and run for office and get elected.

The 6th District stretches more than 200 miles from Baton Rouge to Shreveport. During oral arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts called it, quote, "a snake that… runs from one side of the state angling up to the other, picking up Black populations as it goes along."

The case was brought by a group describing themselves as "non-African American" voters. They sued Louisiana under the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause, which says the government must treat everyone equally under the law.

In its ruling, the court called the 6th District map an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. 

Named after founding father Elbridge Gerry, gerrymandering is the process of redrawing political voting lines to benefit the party in power and it's perfectly legal. Elbridge Gerry created a district resembling a salamander. Thus, "jerry- mander."

A snake in Louisiana, was a lobster in Virginia and earmuffs in Illinois. 

Rep. Cleo Fields: Yeah, it absolutely looks like a snake.

Congressman Cleo Fields acknowledges Black representation in Washington has grown in ways that once seemed impossible. This Congress has more Black members than at any point in history, 63.

Cecilia Vega: Is that not progress?

Rep. Cleo Fields: Yeah, it's--it's progress. But it's not progress for Louisiana. There are people who in this state and others just will not vote for a Black person for anything. You tell me I have to jump a certain height, that's the rule, I can work to do that. Run a certain speed, if that's the rule, let me work at it, I can do that. But if you tell me in order to be elected to Congress you have to be White, there's nothing I can do about that. I need help from my government.

Gov. Jeff Landry: In the United States, we get equal rights. No one gets extra rights.

This past Tuesday, we went to Baton Rouge and met Gov. Jeff Landry at the governor's mansion.

A close ally of President Trump, he dominates Louisiana politics. The colorful, conservative, Cajun was the state's attorney general before winning the top job in 2023. 

Gov. Jeff Landry: You cannot say that we are all created equal and that, that states must treat everyone equal under the law and then allow a law to sort people based upon race. 

Following the Supreme Court decision, Gov. Landry declared a state of emergency and abruptly suspended congressional house primaries right as voting was starting, ordering a do-over at a future date, leaving voters dazed and confused.

Cecilia Vega: You declared a state of emergency? What exactly is the emergency?

Gov. Jeff Landry: We've got the highest court in the land says the map that you have is unconstitutional, so we don't have a map under which our voters can vote on.

Cecilia Vega: This country has held elections during the Civil War, during two world wars, elections still went on.

Gov. Jeff Landry: We're gonna have an election and we're actually gonna have an election on Election Day.

Cecilia Vega: But voting was already happening. As we sit here right now, more than 45,000 ballots have been returned. What happens to those?

Gov. Jeff Landry: Oh, those ballots are discarded and-- and those voters will vote again in November.

Cecilia Vega: You say that like it's not a big deal. 

Gov. Jeff Landry: Well, it's, it's not a big, it's not my fault. If, if anybody has a grievance, take it to the United States Supreme Court.

Legal challenges over redistricting have consumed Louisiana, with federal courts repeatedly forcing lawmakers to redraw maps.

Gov. Jeff Landry: Our voters are tired of it. I mean, does not Louisiana deserve some clarity? 

Cecilia Vega: How do you want to see this look?

Gov. Jeff Landry: I want Louisiana to be finally unshackled from the decades of litigation.

Cecilia Vega: Would it concern you if there were no African American representatives from Louisiana in Congress?

Gov. Jeff Landry: That's a decision that the legislature's gonna make, but I don't believe that if, that we have to go and draw a district that guarantees us a minority representation. 

Redistricting usually happens at the beginning of each decade using Census data. But last summer, President Trump pushed Texas Republicans to redraw maps in hopes of gaining five seats ahead of the midterms. California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom responded by pushing a redistricting plan of his own that could give democrats in his state five additional blue seats.

Even former President Obama, who has publicly opposed gerrymandering in the past, is now pushing Democrats to fight back and pick up as many congressional seats as they can.

The political tit-for-tat has turned into a coast-to-coast gerrymandering arms race and Republicans are feeling increasingly confident following court rulings in their favor in Louisiana and Virginia.

This past week, their efforts to redraw maps led to protests at the statehouse in Tennessee and Alabama. 

Stephen Vladeck: Whoever draws the maps now has no legal requirement that the map be drawn in any way to protect the political power of minority groups. 

Stephen Vladeck, a Georgetown Law professor who studies the Supreme Court, predicts gerrymandering will lead to an even more polarized Congress dominated by lawmakers representing the extremes of both parties.

Stephen Vladeck: Instead of, you know, once every ten years per the Constitution, states saying, "Oh, we gotta redraw our maps 'cause we have more data about who our people are," now it's, "Let's redraw our maps whenever it's to our partisan political advantage to do so."

Cecilia Vega: Is the biggest difference now President Trump's in office?

Gov. Jeff Landry: Oh, no. No. In fact, to me the president is-- has-- has no-- it's-- he's irrelevant in this issue right now. 

Cecilia Vega: He's been heaping praise on you for this. 

Gov. Jeff Landry: Well, I'm sure that the president would like to see the House of Representatives stay in Republican control. 

Cecilia Vega: I do have to ask you point blank, has the president asked you to redraw maps in order to help him in the midterms?

Gov. Jeff Landry: The president has not asked me to redraw the maps.

That job falls to the Republican super majority in Louisiana's state legislature, which is already hard at work redrawing the maps, capitalizing on the Supreme Court's ruling. 

Cecilia Vega: Justice Alito suggested in his opinion that there's less institutional racism today.

Gov. Jeff Landry: Well, I would agree with that.

Gov. Jeff Landry: I mean, think about it. Barack Obama was elected twice as the United States president. We've had a number of minorities elected. We've seen a rise of Republican candidates who are Black get elected. I mean, are we really tryin' to drug up the past only to continue a failed narrative?

Cecilia Vega: What's the failed narrative?

Gov. Jeff Landry: Well, the failed narrative is that actually that people in Louisiana are racist. That we-- that basically we won't elect Black people. I mean, I disagree with that.

But no Black candidate in Louisiana has been elected to a statewide office, such as governor or attorney general, since reconstruction. For many, Gov. Landry's words fall flat. Pastor Timothy Hunter, Linda Scott, and Donnie Sutton have spent their lives in Shreveport and fear the future could soon resemble the past.

Pastor Timothy Hunter: The reality is, at the end of the day, it's gonna dilute the Black vote. That's the whole purpose. This Republican Congress is all about making America Jim Crow again. There's no more checks and balances. Everything that was there to guard against this type of gerrymandering is destroyed. So there's nobody to stop the train.

Cecilia Vega: Can you separate politics from race in this district?

Donnie Sutton: No, you can't. Not in all of these Southern states.

Linda Scott: We've come a long ways, but not with this when it comes to race and not with the schemes that they're putting up before us. It's just a disgrace but we must keep pressing forward. We have to. Too many people have suffered and died for us to have these rights.

Cecilia Vega: I think a lot of African American voters in this state might say they need that protection when it comes to the ballot box.

Gov. Jeff Landry: I mean, we'd go back to Martin Luther King, right? Judge a person based upon the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.

Cecilia Vega: Black voters in Louisiana have told me that they feel like it's true someone who looks like you who has not lived their experience does not address their concerns as well as someone who has lived their experience.

Gov. Jeff Landry: Well, how is it that a little country boy who grew up in a town that was primarily Black, not lived through those experiences? 

Cecilia Vega: But I do think a lot of folks might say those experiences are not necessarily the same.

Gov. Jeff Landry: Well, you're saying, "I should not judge a person just because the person is Black." And I agree with that. But isn't it the opposite that I shouldn't be judged just because I'm White, or Hispanic or Indian. I mean here we are, after all of the different cases, after all of the rectification of the sins of the past, which certainly no one has denied and yet we're still trying to find some sliver of discrimination in race. 

Cecilia Vega: I think a lotta people would say you don't have to try to find it. It's there.

Gov. Jeff Landry: I would say that you find-- that-- that it would reside in people's hearts, not in their laws.

Produced by Graham Messick, Michael Karzis and Ayesha Siddiqi. Associate producers: Katie Kerbstat, Alex Ortiz, Kit Ramgopal Broadcast associates: Marcos Caballero and Erin DuCharme. News associate: Paloma Vigil. Edited by Matthew Lev and Mike Levine. Assistant editor, Aisha Crespo.