3 November 2025
By Julie O’Donoghue
Contributing Writer
(lailluminator.com) — The Louisiana Senate voted along political party lines Saturday to push back 2026 election dates in an effort to leave as much time as possible to redraw Louisiana’s congressional map. Republicans expect to craft political districts more to their liking if they receive a favorable ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court later this year.
The GOP Senate majority, made up entirely of white senators, outvoted the Democrats, all but one of whom are Black, 27-9, on Senate Bill 1. The legislation moves the political candidate qualifying period and two spring election dates for congressional primary contests back by approximately one month.
Elections scheduled for April 18 and May 30 would move to May 16 and June 27 respectively.
The delayed election timeline will create more opportunity for the Republican-controlled legislature to draw new U.S. House districts where Black voters, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, have less influence over who gets elected.
Louisiana’s current congressional map, passed in early 2024, is made up of six House seats, including two districts with a majority Black electorate. Those two seats are held by Black Democrats, Troy Carter of New Orleans and Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge.
Should the Supreme Court allow it, state lawmakers will likely approve a new congressional map that includes one or zero majority-Black districts, even though the state’s population is approximately one-third Black. Such a map would make it harder for Black officials and Democrats to be elected to Congress.
Republicans are hopeful the Supreme Court will hand down a ruling in the Callais v. Louisiana case that not only allows them to draw new maps but on an expedited schedule.
While Supreme Court decisions typically come out in late spring or early summer, Louisiana Republican officials want justices to issue a ruling in this case by the end of December.
The accelerated timeline would allow state lawmakers to draw new U.S. House seats in time for the next congressional election in November. If the decision comes out later, lawmakers would likely have to wait another two years – the length of a term in the U.S. House – to use new political districts.
The Supreme Court will not necessarily rule by the end of the year, however. Even if it does, Louisiana would not be obligated to change its political map in time for the November election contests.
Previously, when the Supreme Court has struck down election maps as unconstitutional, it has not required that new maps be drawn and used if the election process is already underway or about to start. The court has permitted – even required – states to wait to use their newly compliant maps in the next cycle, which would be 2028 for Louisiana’s U.S. House seats.
But President Donald Trump has urged Republican officials in states across the country to redraw their congressional districts to favor the GOP ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. More Republican districts would increase the chances the U.S. House would remain under Republican control and aligned with Trump.
In Louisiana, GOP lawmakers have tried to downplay arguments from Democrats that their efforts to push back the election dates are related to Trump’s push to have more Republican seats.
Republicans have said the moving of the election dates is simply allowing more time to get clarity from the Supreme Court over redistricting requirements.
“We could draw a 6-0 map. We could draw a 5-1 map [that removes a majority-Black district]. That’s not what we’re here doing,” said Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a white Republican from Port Allen and sponsor of the legislation, ahead of the Senate floor vote Saturday.
Democrats countered that the election dates were being moved for no other reason than to accommodate the Republicans’ desires to pass a map with fewer majority-Black districts.
“Remember when President Trump so boldly stated to the state legislatures to go and get me more Republican congressional districts?” Sen. Katrina Jackson, a Black Democrat from Monroe, said Saturday. “We’re not here for drawing districts, but it seems like we’re here in the hopes that the Supreme Court will rule a certain way.”
Moving election dates will affect more than just next year’s congressional races.
Municipal elections and ballot initiatives that were supposed to be voted on at the same time as the congressional primaries will also be pushed back in anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling.
Depending on what the Supreme Court decides, it’s possible some municipalities could also redraw their political districts ahead of elections to provide Black voters with less influence at the local level too, Sen. Gerald Boudreaux of Lafayette, who is the head of the Senate Democratic Caucus, said in an interview this week.
Lawmakers also had to write an exception into Senate Bill 1 that allows for local ballot measures concerning bonds, debt and taxes to move forward on the newly proposed election dates in May and June.
On Saturday, the Senate also voted to push back the election dates of five proposed constitutional amendments from April 18 to May 16 through Senate Bill 2. These amendments include those that affect public school teacher compensation, the mandatory retirement age for state judges and a reworking of state civil service.
Democrats argued that these adjustments are evidence the legislature is acting too swiftly to change election dates.
“I wish that this debate was as simple as what some people are trying to fashion – saying this is about moving dates,” Sen. Sam Jenkins, a Black Democrat from Shreveport, told his colleagues. “It’s really not that simple.”
Republicans said the changes they are to making are not consequential.
This article originally published in the November 3, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.