Louisiana state officials suspended their congressional primary elections Thursday, one day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a redistricting plan that created a second majority Black congressional district in the state. The suspension is applicable only to the U.S. House of Representative primaries as Senate is a statewide race.
Early voting in Louisiana’s primaries was scheduled to begin Saturday, with the election slated for May 16. But Gov. Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill — both Republicans — said the court’s ruling prohibits the state from holding the primaries under the current districts.
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“The State is currently enjoined from carrying out congressional elections under the current map,” Landry said in a post to social media. “We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward.”
Governor Jeff Landry and @AGLizMurrill issued the following statement after yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.
— Governor Jeff Landry (@LAGovJeffLandry) April 30, 2026
“Yesterday’s historic Supreme Court victory for Louisiana has an immediate consequence for the State. The Supreme Court previously stayed an…
In a 6-3 ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court said the state violated the Voting Rights Act by creating a district now represented by Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields. The court’s ruling was seen as a major blow to the Voting Rights Act, the 1965 landmark legislation that was enacted to remedy historic disenfranchisement of Black voters.
Walter Olson, public policy scholar at Cato Institute, told Straight Arrow that the decision could have been more drastic and absolute to say race cannot be considered in redrawing the maps. Instead, he said that the leading opinion told states to redraw districts without accounting for racial representation.
“There’s going to be a lot of going back, starting next year,” Olson said, “to the question of whether or not those maps need to be redrawn.”
That can happen in spite of legislators’ willingness to revisit maps, as Olson said the opinion leaves the possibility for people to sue, arguing that districts violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
“How often that will happen? I’m not sure, but I’m much more confident that you will see it happen more for the next cycle, in which people have time to prepare litigation, and it will be harder to talk people out of filing lawsuits and so forth if they think there’s an advantage to begin with,” he said.
Delaying elections not unusual
The U.S. Constitution leaves the administering of elections to the states in the manner they see fit, with exceptions. That power has afforded election administrators or secretaries of state to delay or suspend votes when appropriate.
Landry’s suspension isn’t the first, as administrators had to reschedule primaries at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to address public health concerns, the National Conference of State Legislatures said.
Louisiana Democrats criticized the suspension, with state Sen. Royce Duplessis telling The Associated Press that the ruling will confuse Louisiana voters.
“This is going to cause mass confusion among voters — Democrats, Republicans, white, Black, everybody,” Duplessis said. “What they’re effectively doing is changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game. It’s rigging the system.”
Thirty-one candidates for the state’s U.S. House seats are running in the now-canceled primaries. Olson said that with maps being tossed out, he could see residents being alerted that their districts have changed, which could change what candidates they see on their ballots. It can also affect a candidate’s campaign strategy as their district could include a demographic or geography that differs from the former. Louisiana’s laws allow for the governor and the legislature to redraw district maps.
It could be an easy process if all parties are on the same page. The real issue rests on secretaries of state and election administrators. That includes reprinting ballots or issuing corrections for those who vote by mail or absentee, and then communicating to Louisianans about the changes.
“In states where the politicians already hold the power, they also hold the flexibility to redo schedules, even at a later point in the year,” Olson said.
States look to join after SCOTUS ruling
With the Supreme Court case settled, other states are taking a harder look at joining the national redistricting push, some at Trump’s urging.
The president wrote on his TruthSocial account that he spoke with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, about redrawing congressional boundaries to “correct the unconstitutional flaw in the Congressional Maps of the Great State of Tennessee.” Trump did not expand on what the flaw was, but said it would give Republicans one extra seat.
That seat would come at the cost of Rep. Steve Cohen, the state’s lone Democratic congressman. His district covers parts of Memphis, a city that’s 61% Black, according to the Census Bureau. Cohen wrote on X that his office is exploring options to fight redistricting.
In Mississippi, the Supreme Court decision triggered a special legislative session on congressional districts. Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, announced on X that he’s imploring the state legislature to immediately consider redrawing maps once the decision is released. He said the session would take place 21 days after the decision, which could land on May 20.
Politicians across the nation have urged their states to enter the horse race, whether to solidify a Republican or Democratic majority. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., have each made such a call on Thursday.
Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill that states with “unconstitutional maps should look at that very carefully,” in reference to the SCOTUS decision, and redraw maps before the November midterms, according to The Washington Post. Jeffries told POLITICO his party is considering the effort once the midterms pass.
“We’re looking at every opportunity to ensure that communities of color will continue to have the chance to elect the candidate of their choice in districts that have traditionally been covered by the Voting Rights Act,” he told the publication.
Louisiana’s nearly six-year legal battle
Four Republicans and two Democrats represent Louisiana in the U.S. House of Representatives. The court’s ruling could allow Republicans to pick up one more seat in the November midterm elections.
The case was just one of several moves in an unusual mid-decade redistricting fight with Republicans looking to minimize losses by changing map boundaries in their favor. The current push began after President Donald Trump ordered Texas state legislators to redraw their map. They did, and it sparked a battle between red and blue states, with Florida the latest to approve a new map.
But Louisiana’s map fight goes back further than that, beginning after the 2020 census. Louisiana officials had drawn a congressional map with only one Black majority district and five predominantly white districts. The map received pushback since Louisiana, like most Southern states, has a large Black population — about 33%.
A federal judge struck down Louisiana’s map, saying it violated the Voting Rights Act. The state’s legislature passed a new House map with two Black majority districts. But white voters in the state challenged that map, which was the latest challenge to the state’s congressional boundaries.
“They may lose both of them because the court has given what sure looks like a roadmap to just put politics front and center,” Olson said.
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