Incumbent – Sharon Weston Broome (D – Term Limited in 2015)

District Map

Senate District 15

Vote History

Current District

East Baton Rouge was once a reliably Republican parish, and between 1964 and 2004 (with two exceptions), it voted for the Republican Presidential nominee. It was also one of the first parishes to develop a robust Republican infrastructure at the local level. Yet in the 2008 Presidential elections, it was one of 10 parishes to vote for Barack Obama. To understand why this happened, it’s best to look at legislative districts like Senate District 15.

Senate District 15 was originally a conservative leaning district after the 1980s reapportionment, and in this incarnation, Jay Dardenne came within 300 votes of getting elected in his first try for public office in 1987. However, during the 1991 reapportionment, former Senate President Sammy Nunez (an ally of former Governor Edwards who deposed former Governor Roemer’s Senate President in 1990) used reapportionment to help solidify his control of the chamber by creating more black majority districts at the expense of senators who were considered favorable to the Roemer administration. One of those “targets” was former Democratic state Senator Larry Bankston, whose south Baton Rouge district was split into several pieces, and was reconfigured as a black majority state senate district. In its 1991 configuration, it stretched from (then) middle class white neighborhoods off Florida Boulevard up through north Baton Rouge and Zachary. From there, it then meandered through portions of six adjacent parishes. However, Senator Bankston was able to get re-elected with 51% of the vote in the primary by cornering the white vote (he had four black opponents) and getting just enough black support to win. Had he been pushed into the runoff, it’s entirely possible that he would have lost, because of the polarization (and very high black turnout) that took place with the Edwards-Duke race at the top of the ticket during the runoff election.

Interestingly, after Bankston’s re-election, he allied himself with the Senate leadership, to the point that he chaired a gambling subcommittee at a time gambling was being implemented statewide. However, a 1995 federal investigation into video poker had Bankston squarely in its line of fire, and Bankston chose not to seek re-election that year. He was succeeded by black Democrat Wilson Fields (the brother of former senator/Congressman Cleo Fields), who was elected in a racially polarized runoff with 61% against a Republican – Fields got 66% in East Baton Rouge Parish and 57% in the rural parishes.

The district lines were redrawn in 1997, and the district was compacted to include just East Baton Rouge Parish, the Felicianas, and St. Helena Parish. In this redrawn district, Fields was nevertheless re-elected in 1999 with 65% over a Republican, receiving 79% of the vote in East Baton Rouge Parish, but only 51% of the vote in the rural parishes, as there was some lingering racial polarization there.

Sen. Wilson Fields was the beneficiary of legislation creating a new judgeship in East Baton Rouge Parish during his second term, so he resigned to run for (and win) a district judgeship in 2001. He was succeeded by then state representative “Kip” Holden, who was also a black Democrat. Holden was elected in the primary 51-35%; the 75% he got in East Baton Rouge Parish put him over the top, as a white opponent carried theFloridaparishes over Holden 51-27%.  Shortly after Sen. Holden’s 2001 election, reapportionment further compacted the district to where it is now wholly within East Baton Rouge. In this current configuration, Holden was re-elected with 79% of the vote, and when he resigned upon his historic election as the first black Mayor-President of East Baton Rouge Parish in 2004, state Representative Sharon Weston Broome succeeded him without opposition and was re-elected with 80% of the vote in 2007. (UPDATED 9/9/2011) She is allowed to seek one more term, and was unopposed in 2011.

The current configuration of the district includes areas north of Florida Boulevard between Airline Highway and the Comite River all the way up to Zachary. This current configuration has a 71% black voter registration, which is a significant increase from 61% when the lines were last drawn; demographic changes over the past decade in neighborhoods/towns like Villa Del Rey, Red Oak, Park Forest, Monticello, Brownfields, and Baker explain why East Baton Rouge is no longer a Republican stronghold.

This 71% black voter registration provides Democrats with a significant “cushion” of votes – when the lines were last drawn, Republicans could count on 30% of the vote in contested races; now, they can expect about 25%. And with continued demographic changes throughout the district, those numbers are expected to decline further.

New District

Redistricting was simple in the Baton Rouge area: this was the one part of the state that had robust population growth, and Senate District 15 was 4% overpopulated. Though this district could have been left alone, changes made to neighboring districts impacted the district. There were three changes made which slightly reduced the black voter registration from 71 to 69%: (1) moving a Howell Park and a Scotlandville precinct to Senate District 14 (represented by Yvonne Dorsey), (2) addition of the Sherwood Forest subdivision and nearby apartments along Boulevard De Province, and (3) removal of a handful of precincts in Zachary north of Church Street. These changes don’t affect the political balance much, and as the decade goes on, black voter registration will likely increase in this district. Senator Broome (or another black Democrat) shouldn’t have any electoral problems here.