Incumbent– Gary Smith (D – Term Limited in 2011)

District Map

House District 56

 

Voting History

Current District

As you are leaving New Orleans heading west towards Baton Rouge on I-10, the swamp abruptly begins about a mile past the New Orleans airport at the St. Charles Parish line. District 56 covers this territory, and includes most of St. Charles Parish except for a few heavily Republican precincts near Boutte on the west bank. It also includes the portion of St. John Parish on the east side of LaPlace. There is a 30% black voter registration here, which is an increase from 28% when the lines were drawn.

This is another one of several districts that will usually vote Republican at the top of the ticket (though never by substantial margins, due to the black vote), while supporting Democrats for the legislature. For over 20 years, the seat alternated between Democrats Ralph Miller and Joel Chaisson. In 1991, Chaisson’s son defeated Rep. Miller in the 1991 runoff, and held the seat for two terms before vacating the seat to run for the state senate in 1999 to upset a longtime Democratic incumbent (Chaisson currently serves as the Senate President). Rep. Chaisson was succeeded by Gary Smith. While Rep. Smith was unopposed in 2003, there was controversy regarding some FEMA contracts his family received for post Katrina work, and he was re-elected in 2007 with a reduced 58% of the vote against a fellow Democrat. Term limits prevent Rep. Smith from running again.

Proposed District

While population losses weren’t an issue for this district (the population of the district after the Census was 9% over that of the “ideal” district), changes to neighboring districts affected the contours of this district. There were two different changes made which dropped the black voter registration from 30 to 18%, in the process creating a district that a Republican is favored to win.

The first change made was the additio  of Republican precincts near Boutte that were in District 105 (held by term limited Ernest Wooton). These precincts were 6% black and supported David Vitter by a 78-18% margin. At the same time, the reconfiguration of District 57 (held by retiring Nickie Monica) to the west) to be a black majority district meant that black precincts in LaPlace and the west bank of St Charles Parish between Edgard and Boutte were removed from District 56.

Overall, you have a district that is pretty securely Republican; the question is whether these demographic changes will generate interest from local Republicans, who historically have not seriously contested legislative races in the parish.