(The Center Square) — Louisiana voters will head to the polls a month later than scheduled next year, the result of the Republican-led state legislature fast-tracking a series of bills in anticipation of the Supreme Court allowing them to redraw congressional districts.
The April 2026 primary will be moved to May, and the May runoff to June. Candidate qualifying shifts from mid-January to mid-February, with nominating petitions due 20 days before qualifying. The revised schedule would provide a short window to redraw the districts if the Court rules before the end of the year, and it could give Republicans a chance to redraw them in their favor.
The move capped a special session called by GOP Gov. Jeff Landry to address the issue. After days of partisan debate, lawmakers passed the measure proposed by Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, R-Port Allen.
Kleinpeter framed it as a narrowly tailored pause to give justices room to rule without locking in Louisiana’s current districts under the Purcell principle, which prevents federal courts from changing election rules or redistricting maps too close to an election.
“If we don’t do what we’re doing here, then the Purcell principle could take effect and we would be stuck with the current map,” Kleinpeter said in an interview last week. “We’re just trying to give the Supreme Court enough time to make a decision.”
Though Kleinpeter said his bill was “simple,” Democrats charged him and other Republicans with “racism” and said the legislation will confuse voters.
Rep. Candace Newell, D–New Orleans, warned the calendar bill runs afoul of Louisiana’s ban on special or local laws governing elections. Newell echoed concerns from her fellow Democrats that the bill compresses the election timeline in a way that harms voters.
If the legislature allows the calendar to be “weaponized,” Newell said, lawmakers will have “traded our citizens’ right to fairly drawn districts for merely a political advantage,” making it harder for voters to hold their government accountable.
“Election dates are not partisan. Election dates do not see color. This bill deals with election dates and nothing else,” Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, said, adding that voters regularly see adjustments tied to holidays or special elections.
“Pushing back an election date one month… is not the definition of confusion,” Beaullieu said.
