Landry's gamble: remaps to sink closed primary?

If he continues to pursue bills that hurt the electoral chances of his party, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry may find he sabotages the chances of his own desired bill that probably helps the GOP.

The 2024 First Extraordinary Session of the Louisiana Legislature focuses on three items: congressional reapportionment, state Supreme Court reapportionment, and changing the electoral system. Landry backs doubling the number of majority-minority districts among the six for Congress to two by a reshuffling to produce a majority black district running from Shreveport along the Red River then branching off to Lafayette and Baton Rouge; doing the same for the seven Supreme Court districts by splitting north Louisiana among three districts and moving lines for the present Sixth District in the south; and to institute closed primary elections for federal and state offices, leaving local elections as blanket primaries.

The first wish is a byproduct of federal court decisions that soon could alter forcibly the present single M/M lineup that could threaten the seat of Landry ally GOP Rep. Julia Letlow, where Landry’s preferred solution would put into electoral difficulty rival Republican Rep. Garret Graves. The second faces litigation, but to date jurisprudence finds the current district layout constitutional and to rule otherwise would take a major shift from that. The third has no legal actions shaping it.

From the overall Republican perspective, the reapportionments only would damage the party because it would cost them a seat almost certainly in Congress, and maybe on the Supreme Court. However, the party probably would benefit from closed primary elections that might cause a small number of legislative seats to flip from Democrats and perhaps advantage more conservative candidates in federal and state contests.

That Landry would support the first two is somewhat of a headscratcher to a number of Republicans. Regarding congressional reapportionment, plenty of options exist to challenge the federal district court’s imposition of two M/M districts, including one the state already is pursuing pursuant to a similar legal challenge to its legislative districts that has yet to produce a ruling. Plus, Landry’s preferred arrangement is uncomfortably close to one ruled unconstitutional three decades ago.

As for Supreme Court reapportionment, there’s no legal imperative here. Any district court ruling that would apply malapportionment as a constitutional standard for judicial elections would break severely from precedent that undoubtedly would wind up decided by the U.S. Supreme Court several years from now. Chances are the existing suit, now four years along, won’t go anywhere, but Landry over the past few years has expressed dismay over the malapportionment, with the highest-populated district almost twice as large as the lowest, an arrangement that has been petitioned by five of the seven judges for the state to change that.

GOP legislator doubts registered in the two bills that have advanced out of differing chambers addressing these. HB 8 dealing with the Court by Republican state Rep. Mike Johnson passed easily, but with opposition from some Caddo Parish representatives – the southern part of the parish gets split from the northern – and from representatives south of Interstate 10 west of New Orleans, all Republicans.

SB 8 by GOP state Sen. Glen Womack, which addresses congressional districts, passed about 2:1 but with almost half of Republicans against, including those from northern Louisiana and Capitol area districts. HB 17 by Republican state Rep. Julie Emerson, dealing with primary elections, passed by about the same, with all but one Democrat opposed and nine Republicans, including seven veterans generally viewed as the least conservative of the House GOP, joining them.

Scuttlebutt has it that the Senate might be more resistant to HB 17. A couple of the least conservative GOP senators could be expected to vote against it for starters and others are hesitant about it, so at this point it may only have a vote or two to spare. Democrats seem as unwilling as their House counterparts to support it, and Landry will have limited influence over those in his party who see it as damaging to their reelection prospects as they consider it a matter of electoral life or death.

Thus, it could be sunk with a very few defections, which could come from that north Louisiana/Capitol area contingent upset with congressional reapportionment. These individuals, a couple of whom won tough campaigns, while they might consider closed primaries helpful won’t fear having to win through blanket primaries again in having done so before. They might be willing to play hardball with Landry and if he persists with his reapportionment plans they could sink what should be his most important priority of the session, and perhaps of his whole governorship.

It will be a real test of Landry’s leadership and skills to have all three pass in the form he wants, if any pass. At the same time, regardless of his success he will expend not a small amount of political capital on the effort, much of it which has no real imperative attached to it and upsets his natural allies that could detract from their working together forthwith and beyond. Worst of all, his efforts could come to naught, which from the party’s perspective wouldn’t be much of a loss were the reapportionment bills to founder but would be a major missed opportunity if changing the electoral system fails. Especially if it’s because Landry was so insistent on relatively unimportant matters that leads him to flub the big kahuna.