Incumbent – Wesley Bishop (D – Term Limited in 2023)

District Map

House District 99

Vote History

Current District

House District 99 is located in New Orleans and can simply be thought of as the “Lower 9^th Ward district” whose rough boundaries are the Mississippi River, the Orleans/St. Bernard Parish line, the Industrial Canal, Chef Menteur Highway, and the Southern Railway. This is a district that had a 91% black majority a decade ago; that number today is 83%, as there are areas of white settlement near the Mississippi River that have maintained their population since Hurricane Katrina, which hit this district hard. 

This is the most Democratic district in the state, as the overwhelming black majority, combined with white liberals, makes this a district that typically gives 95% of its vote to Democratic candidates. 

This is a district that typically re-elects its incumbents, although there was some turbulence over a decade ago. When black Democrat Jon Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1985, political operator Sherman Copelin was elected, and served until his defeat in 1999 by Leonard Lucas. Lucas himself was defeated four years later by Charmaine Marchand Stiaes (she was Charmaine Marchand when she was first elected).(UPDATED 8/28/2011) Stiaes was easily re-elected in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2007, but decided not to seek re-election in 2011 after reapportionment collapsed her district into the adjacent district of newly elected Wesley Bishop.

New District

District 99 was the epicenter of some of the most horrific destruction due to levee failures during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Accordingly, there was a massive population exodus from the district, and District 99 was 62% under populated. Fortunately, the district was preserved, as the elevation of state representative Cedric Richmond to Congress (he represented an adjacent district in New Orleans East) created a district that could be eliminated with little political carnage. In fact, nearly all of District 101 was absorbed into District 99, and District 99 also picked up some additional precincts in the Marigny neighborhood adjacent to the French Quarter. 

These changes have more than doubled the size of the district (its black voter registration has slightly decreased from 83 to 80%). Its new district boundaries now are the Orleans/St. Bernard Parish line, Paris Road, Chef Menteur Highway, Crowder Boulevard, the Industrial Canal, and Almonaster. (UPDATED 9/9/2011) This is not a district where a black Democrat would have problems with re-election.