Legislative leaders say approving a new Congressional map in this regular session is possible. Jeff Palermo has the story.
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In light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled Louisiana’s congressional map an unconstitutional gerrymander, next month’s U.S. House primaries are now suspended. Andrew Greenstein reports.
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The ACLU of Louisiana calls yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on the state’s congressional map “disgraceful.” Executive Director Alanah Odoms says by chipping away at the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court is dialing back civil rights as a whole.
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Odoms says she fears that this ruling will be the catalyst for making life a lot more difficult for minorities.
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Odoms says it’s not just people of color who will suffer in the long run because of this ruling.
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Governor Jeff Landry has signed an executive order suspending Louisiana’s U.S House of Representatives races, after the U-S Supreme Court ruled the current Congressional map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Shreveport Senator Alan Seabaugh agrees with this decision since the Supreme Court is the final word, a new map must be approved before the U-S House elections can take place…
Early voting for the federal elections, including the six U-S House party primaries, was set to begin on Saturday. Seabaugh says postponing the Congressional elections is the right thing to do so that a legal Congressional map can approved by the state legislature…
The Republican and Democratic U.S. Senate primaries will go on as scheduled as well as the other races for BESE, PSC and the Supreme Court. There is a little more than a month left in the regular session to approve a new Congressional map. Seabaugh says bills were filed weeks ago in case the nation’s highest court ruled that the current map is unconstitutional…
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In light of yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling, next month’s U.S. House primaries in Louisiana are now suspended. Secretary of State Nancy Landry made the announcement this afternoon ahead of Governor Landry’s expected executive order. Landry said in a statement the state is barred from using the current congressional map that the Supreme Court has ruled an unconstitutional gerrymander. Political analyst Scott Hughes says with this suspension, the qualifying process will need to start all over again, since the districts will have changed and there are specific qualifying rules.
Hughes says there are now only six months to hold an election essentially from square one, which could make a closed primary untenable.
Hughes says if the process is not completed by January 3rd, when the next Congress is sworn in, Louisiana would be left with no representation at all in the House, so it might be in the legislature’s best interest to scrap the closed primary for the U.S. House races.