BATON ROUGE — Louisiana's May 16 congressional primary will not go forward as scheduled, Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a joint statement Thursday morning, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that the state's six-district congressional map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
In the statement, Landry and Murrill said a previous Supreme Court stay that had allowed the state to keep using the current map automatically terminated with Wednesday's decision. "Accordingly, the State is currently enjoined from carrying out congressional elections under the current map," the statement reads. "We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State's office to develop a path forward."
Legally, to be 'enjoined' means a court has issued a formal order, called an injunction, that legally prohibits a person or entity from performing a specific action, or in some cases, requires them to perform one. In this case, the Supreme Court's decision legally prohibits the state from holding an election based on the current congressional district maps.
Early voting had been set to begin Saturday, and absentee voting was already underway. NBC News reported Landry called congressional Republicans Thursday to inform them he plans to push back the primary. Secretary of State Nancy Landry's office said its lawyers were still analyzing the opinion and declined to comment further, citing active litigation.
Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, and House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, said in a joint statement that legislative leaders are reviewing the decision and meeting with the executive branch, elections officials, and counsel to determine next steps.
The 6-3 ruling, written by Justice Samuel Alito, struck down the map drawn by the Legislature in a January 2024 special session in response to earlier litigation under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That map created a second majority-Black district, the 6th, currently held by Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, after a federal court found the prior map likely diluted Black voting strength. The Supreme Court held that the state was not required by Section 2 to draw the second majority-Black district and that doing so amounted to an unconstitutional use of race in redistricting. Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.
Louisiana is currently represented in the U.S. House by four Republicans and two Democrats. A redrawn map could give Republicans an opportunity to pick up an additional seat in the November midterm elections.
State Sen. Royce Duplessis, a New Orleans Democrat, criticized the disruption to the election calendar. "This is going to cause mass confusion among voters," he said, adding that officials are "changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game."
The case has been remanded to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
