Ville Platte, Louisiana

The City of Ville Platte in Evangeline Parish, Louisiana, experienced a dramatic growth in its Black population between 1980 and 2000. According to the 1980 Census, the city was less than a third Black, with the Black voting age population barely over 25% of the total. By the 2000 Census, the town had become 56.6% Black in total population, with Blacks making up 48% of the voting age population. According to the city's voter registration data, Blacks constituted 51.3% of the city's eligible voters in 2004. In 2003 the city proposed to engage in redistricting. The result was a plan that reduced the Black population in one of the 4 majority Black council districts, District F, from 55.1% to 38.1%. In this plan, significant Black population in this district would be shifted to a district that was already 78.8% Black. Because Louisiana is covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, this proposed change had to be submitted to the Department of Justice for their determination as to whether it would adversely impact minority voters. After careful analysis - including looking at the city's past attempts to engage in redistricting where the Department had concluded the city was motivated, at least in part, by a discriminatory purpose -- the Department concluded that the plan to reduce the number of districts where Black voters had an opportunity to elect their candidate of choice from 4 to 3 was designed, at least in part, to make Black voters worse off by eliminating the electoral ability of Black voters in District F. Thus, the DOJ stopped the city from being able to implement this retrogressive change.