The redrawing of election district boundaries every decade is serious business, and a Louisiana Republican state senator who didn’t want to be quoted by name summed up the situation extremely well.

“Everybody is here for self-preservation,” he told The Advocate that is covering the Legislature’s redistricting process at a special session.

The maneuvering by legislators trying to survive and hold on to power is heartbreaking for some and extremely satisfying for others.

Democratic state Rep. Kenny Cox of Natchitoches, for example, is seeing his election district eliminated. “It’s like you threw a land mine into my district and blew it up,” Cox told the House committee that is responsible.

Cox, 64, who is term-limited, said his brother was planning to run for his seat. He said he didn’t think the loss of his district would bother him, but he hasn’t been able to rest. His district is being shifted nearly 250 miles south to create a Black-majority district in a New Orleans neighborhood where the population has grown.

Rep. Tanner Magee, R-Houma, said the switch wasn’t personal, but it is obviously extremely personal to Cox.

Rep. Roy Daryl Adams, a White political independent from Jackson, is seeing his district become a Black-majority district. Adams wonders whether it’s payback for switching his vote during a veto session following last year’s regular session.

The newspaper said Adams admitted he lied when he told Speaker of the House Clay Schexnayder, R-Gonzales, he would vote to override Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards on a transgender bill but voted with the governor.

Asked if this was punishment, Adams said he didn’t know. However, it certainly sounds like it is. It wouldn’t be the first time Schexnayder punished a lawmaker who didn’t play by his rules.

You can’t help but be amused about what those who are trying so hard to gain an advantage in the next election are doing.

Rep. Alan Seabaugh, an extremely conservative Republican from Shreveport, had plans to run for the seat of Sen. Barrow Peacock, R-Shreveport, who is term-limited. However, Peacock’s seat is disappearing from north Louisiana.

Seabaugh said he might have to move and challenge one of three Republican incumbents whose district lines are shifting.

Senate President Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, and Sen. Fred Mills, R-New Iberia, are term-limited and there was a little concern over whether their boundaries would be changed to help representatives interested in running for the Senate.

Rep. Stuart Bishop, R-Lafayette, said he wasn’t interested, but two other representatives do want those jobs. A couple of former senators are also thinking about seeking those seats.

Former Sens. Craig Romero, R-New Iberia, and Troy Hebert, an independent from Jeanerette, said they may want to run. Hebert said, “Unfortunately, they have drawn me out of the district. This is infighting by Republicans. There are no Democrats in this fight.

Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, who is term-limited, denied accusations by Republican activists that he has leaned on Cortez to make sure his district’s new boundaries will help elect his son Robert to replace him. The son said he is considering running for his dad’s seat.

Hebert, that former senator, was correct when he said all of the wheeling and dealing at the redistricting session is infighting by Republicans only.

Katie Bernhardt, chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party, said she believes Republicans are trying to create 72 GOP seats in the state House. Republicans hold 68 now and it takes 70 to override a governor’s veto. They already have 27 senators and it only takes 26 to override a veto in the upper chamber.

Black legislators believe they are entitled to a second Black-majority congressional district and additional seats in the state House and Senate. Black population has increased while White population has decreased.

Unfortunately, it isn’t going to happen. Republican leaders have decided to go with the status quo in all three areas. Blacks and Democrats aren’t getting any breaks anywhere.

A federal court in Alabama blocked that state’s congressional district plans that didn’t add a second Black-majority district, and that gave some hope to Blacks that Louisiana might get the same outcome. However, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling Monday evening said it was too close to the election to require Alabama to draw new maps.

The nation’s highest court may take up this case later, but the odds are that the election maps being drawn in Louisiana and in some other states may be in effect for the next decade. Republicans in this state are getting everything they wanted and a little more.