Cleo Fields: “I can state several reasons why I feel that the district has been singled out, one being the fact that it is a…”

“I can state several reasons why I feel that the district has been singled out, one being the fact that it is a majority-minority district. In Shaw versus Reno the Court, when it ruled, it gave an invitation to plaintiffs all across or people all across this country, that if you live in a majority-minority district and you do not like the appearance of it, then you have the right to file a lawsuit and you have a right to be heard. So I think plaintiffs, as a result of Shaw versus Reno, filed this lawsuit, and simply because it was a majority-minority district. Now, these plaintiffs, you have a picture of a map of the Louisiana district, and the gentleman had another map earlier that showed the second phase of the Louisiana district. As you can see, Louisiana is the only State in the Nation that has changed its congressional district twice within 2 years. First they started with the Zorro plan, and a lot of people considered that the Zorro plan because the minority district was shaped by a Z. I put evidence in the record in the Louisiana State Senate only yesterday to show that the Zorro plan was not created in the 1990's. The Zorro plan, in fact, was created in the 1970's, but it was not a majority-minority district. It was a majority-minority district and it was not called Zorro then, it was called a congressional district, and it was about 80 percent majority. But because it is majority-minority, now it is Zorro. It looks bad.…”