Why it failed part III: hardly closed primaries

The most cataclysmic failure of the concluded 2024 First Extraordinary Session of the Louisiana Legislature was genuinely closed primary elections for all Louisiana federal offices and statewide plenary executive and judicial contests (much less for statewide single executive, legislative, and appellate and district court offices) won’t come anytime soon.

Recently, particularly Republicans had stumped for closed primaries, and even made legislative overtures to close primaries for all federal contests, as presidential preference primaries have been for decades. This means only registrants of that party could vote to determine a general election nominee, as opposed to the current blanket primary which actually isn’t a primary but instead a general election contest without party nominees where all candidates regardless of labelling run together. If no candidate receives a majority, a runoff election occurs.

In this session, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry backed even more ambitious changes that would have created unadulterated closed primaries for all majoritarian branch contests at the federal and state level. Major parties at their own discretion could opt in to let unaffiliated voters participate in these contests. The plurality winner in a primary would advance. Local offices were excluded, which is not inconsistent in that the current blanket primary system simulates nonpartisan local elections commonly held across the country.

By far this was the most important issue in the session because the blanket primary system distorts the policy-making process to the state’s detriment. If parties can control the most important decision they can make, providing a candidate of their label for the general election, this prompts election of officials more likely to pursue a common agenda rather than individual ones. And a major reason why Louisiana has fallen so far behind other states on issues of economic prosperity and quality of life, as evidenced by the outmigration of over 100,000 residents during the governorship of Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards, is because the blanket primary system doesn’t provide the glue to hold together a majority party that helps it make significant and bolder holistic policy changes necessary to address numerous shortcomings.

Of course, the bigger the change, the greater the political power needed. Landry and his legislative allies needed to let nothing interfere with this quest. And then they botched it, big time.

It all started going awry as dilution after dilution of the original legislation occurred. When the dust settled days later, all that was left was “closed” primaries for congressional offices and for the Public Service Commission, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and Supreme Court, with runoffs if needed. And these aren’t really even “closed,” because the version that passed took away parties’ ability to exclude unaffiliated voters.

Note that if one goal of Landry and the GOP supermajorities in each legislative chamber was to enhance the party’s ability to carry a conservative agenda that could fix what ails the state through primaries that tended to weed out Republicans-in-Name-Only, they failed almost entirely. And even in the narrow areas of education and utility regulation, or for congressional contests, milquetoast conservatives still can win those GOP primaries with support from moderate leftists that can change their registrations to no party (which can be done in seconds online if you have a driver’s license, or in days by mail if you don’t) and back again every four years to vote in the Democrats’ presidential primary.

Landry and the GOP flubbed their chance for meaningful and comprehensive close primaries because they mistakenly gave away a congressional seat – and nearly did the same with a state Supreme Court seat – to Democrats through voluntary congressional reapportionment spurred by an unresolved court case that the state has a decent chance of winning, even though they are contesting the very same kind of case concerning legislative reapportionment rather than capitulating. These attempted giveaways sensitized particularly Senate Republicans, all of whom gained their seats under the blanket primary system and many of whom blanched at handing Democrats a gift, to seeing they had no real reason to turn their backs on the system that got them there by going out on a limb for a Republican governor willing to give away the farm.

If bound to surrender seats thus triggering this reaction within their own party, to get the votes to pass something close to the original bill what Landry and GOP leaders had to do was tell the beneficiary Democrats that unless they went along with that, then congressional reapportionment was off the table and the state would take its chances with the courts, just like it was with legislative reapportionment. If they tried this, they did it too ineffectively.

Chances for change like this don’t come often, yet Landry blew this opportunity for fundamental reform necessary for moving the state forward by letting reapportionment distractions get in the way.