| Good Morning, After a year-long delay in counting the nation’s population; after months of town halls across the state; after weeks of wrangling behind closed doors; the Louisiana Legislature convenes at 5 p.m. today to begin the process of adjusting district lines to align with shifts in population found by the latest U.S. Census. State lawmakers have until Feb 20 to finish identifying the voters and establishing the districts that will elect for the next 10 years 105 state representatives, 39 state senators, six congresspeople, 11 policymakers for public schools, and five utility regulators. A few states with GOP-dominated legislatures that already have drawn their maps are facing court challenges that allege that demographic changes were ignored to enable Republican dominance for the next decade. A federal court in Alabama negated that state’s plan. Courts in Texas and North Carolina have been asked to do the same for those states. Louisiana lawmakers have talked a lot about transparency for the process but so far has practiced little of it. No bills had been filed detailing the precincts assigned to each district as of 24 hours before the Legislature gaveled in. Two pieces of legislation were filed late Monday night in the House and six bills were filed in the state Senate. Louisiana’s minority population grew and its White population shrank. Many advocates in Baton Rouge argued that the northern part of the parish could serve as the base of a second minority-majority congressional district, which likely would mean that one of five white Republican congresspeople would be replaced by a Democrat. House Bill 1 keeps north Baton Rouge as part of the minority-majority 2nd Congressional District, in which New Orleans has far more voters and thereby dominates the district. The House has not yet submitted a bill to redraw the 105 districts from which state representatives would be elected as negotiations continue over which north Louisiana seat will be moved to south Louisiana. Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards latest pronouncements seem to indicate that he’s backing off earlier support of a second minority-majority Congressional district in favor of one of the six congressional districts being demographically competitive. But Edwards has other problems after the Associated Press reported that he was informed almost immediately of the killing of Ronald Greene by the Louisiana State Police but did nothing. Edwards’ staff responded that he was texted of the death by the head of State Police as is routinely done. But the governor didn’t know the details until months later when a video was released showing state troopers pummeling Greene. The governor is meeting with the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus this afternoon and will publicly address the situation for the first time at 4:30 p.m. – a half-hour before the redistricting session begins. The state Senate already has a committee that for months has been looking into procedures, processes, and misconduct of state troopers. House Speaker Clay Schexnayder and the Louisiana Republican Party are demanding a “what did he know and when did he know” investigation of the governor. As always, check throughout the day for the latest Louisiana political news at theadvocate.com/politics or NOLA.com/politics and on Twitter at @MarkBallardCNB, @tegbridges, @samkarlin, @blakepater, @WillSentell. Here are a dozen articles, commentaries and editorials that will catch you up for the week to come. One last item: Thank you to our subscribers. Your support means a great deal to us. If you're not yet a subscriber, we’ve got a special offer you can check out here. – Mark Ballard | 