It’s only January, but Gov. Jeff Landry and the GOP-controlled state Legislature have already started to secure their eternal reign over Louisiana.
On Jan. 19, a bill by Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, passed the Senate in a vote of 29-9 and the House in a vote of 67-36. It’s a slightly watered down version of one of Landry’s top priorities for the special session that he called to address Congressional redistricting and other electoral matters.
Beginning in 2026, Louisiana will hold party primary elections for Congress, the state Supreme Court, BESE and the Public Service Commission. Landry had hoped for this to extend to other offices as well.
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This is a substantial change from the unique electoral system Louisianians are used to. For decades, all candidates for an office, regardless of party, have appeared on one ballot. If no candidate received a majority, then the top two vote-getters would proceed to a runoff.
There are three reasons why Emerson’s bill and Landry’s vision for our elections are bad for the state’s democracy.
First, party primaries promote political extremism. When a candidate only has to appeal to their core base of supporters, they’re drawn to the extremes of their party. In a “jungle” primary, they have to appeal to the whole electorate, or at least reign in their more partisan perspectives.
In a conservative state like Louisiana, party primaries mean that the Trumpiest of MAGA firebrands will not just get more political oxygen, but light the government ablaze with bigotry and populist rage.
Second, runoffs simply give voters a second chance and ensure that the winner has majority support. If a horrible candidate with terrible beliefs manages to get a plurality of votes, then the majority of voters who chose someone else have another opportunity to prevent that candidate from winning. They don’t have that option without a two-round system.
Third, party primaries institutionalize political parties. When the state Legislature passes a law that says there will be a Democratic primary and a Republican primary, they are fully incorporating those parties in the apparatus of our elections more than they already are. The parties go from just collections of like minded individuals bound together by a network of cash and relationships to pieces of the state which the government can’t check but must submit itself to.
Political parties are already bad enough. We don’t need to elevate their members above all other Louisianians.
The political pessimist may at this point ask whether any of this matters.
After all, the Louisiana Republican Party already holds immense power, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. This columnist himself wrote two rather negative opinions about the weakness of our state’s democracy last fall.
Landry won outright in the first round and the GOP secured supermajorities in both chambers of the state Legislature. But this is neither a failure of the current electoral system nor a corrupt process working as intended. Poor turnout and widespread voter apathy have been responsible for pushing nimrod politicians with noxious policies into office.
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The current system is what stands between a powerful state GOP and an omnipotent one. The likes of Landry and Emerson are bad, but closed party primaries are a recipe for an unending disaster that will trump (pun intended) whatever nightmares await in the March legislative session and the entire Landry administration.
It is not hyperbolic to say that the new system makes it more likely that GOP Congressman Clay Higgins might one day be governor or a U.S. senator—and that should terrify anyone who’s ever heard him speak. He’s a man who once began a floor speech about a routine spending package with “Witness, then, the demise of a nation once great.” Do you want that guy to have more power?
In 2024 Louisiana, party primaries would amount to indefinitely renting out the state to the most regressive and reactionary parts of the state GOP. And handing over control of our electoral process to the two parties is certainly not democratic.
If we want all Louisiana voters to have any chance at all to effectively impact our state government, we need to get out the vote and fund civic education, not confine and distort their voices through party primaries.
Open jungle primaries and runoffs, in combination with high voter turnout and strong political efficacy, are a recipe for a healthy democracy.
Are there better electoral systems? Of course. But party primaries are certainly much worse.
Matthew Pellittieri is a 19-year-old history and political science sophomore from Ponchatoula.
