U.S. Rep. Garret Graves objected Monday to a plan by Gov. Jeff Landry and Louisiana Republicans that could jeopardize Graves' future in Congress.
Graves, a White Republican who lives in Baton Rouge, has mostly kept mum as Louisiana's Legislature crafted a bill that would put him in a Black-majority congressional district. The bill unveiled Monday would instead protect the district of U.S. Rep Julia Letlow, R-Start.
Graves broke that silence a few hours after the bill dropped — and he didn't mince words.
“It took 220 years, but Monroe and Livingston will be reunited once again for the second biggest political score in Louisiana history,” Graves said in a statement, referencing towns some 200 miles from each other.
“From Head of Island to Sicily Island; from St. Amant to St. Joseph; and from Oak Grove to, well, Oak Grove, legislation introduced today proposes to do what no Louisiana leader, nor Mother Nature, have ever been able to do: connect the Ouachita River Basin to the Amite River Basin.”
Graves' statement sarcastically praised the "imaginative creativity" of the bill, which is carried by state Sen. Glen Womack, R-Harrisonburg.
Landry called lawmakers back to Baton Rouge this week for a special session under a court order to redraw Louisiana's congressional maps in order to feature a second majority-Black district.
Lawmakers filed a flurry of maps, some of which would redraw Letlow's district, which currently stretches from northeast Louisiana down to Tangipahoa Parish, instead of Graves' district.
But Womack's map is among a handful of proposals supported by the new GOP governor which appear to have the best chance of becoming law.
Graves became a top confidant of former U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy until McCarthy's ousting by far-right conservatives last year. He was recently removed by McCarthy's replacement, Graves' fellow Louisiana delegation member Mike Johnson, from the advisory role Graves held under the previous speaker.