Landry’s agenda seeks to do away with Louisiana’s open primary
17th January 2024 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
Jan 15 Special Session includes a call to return to closed primaries.
Recently, a legislator from another state happened to be visiting the Louisiana House and Senate chambers in Baton Rouge. Suddenly, he expressed amazement to his tour guide, a senior staffer of the La. state House, that legislators sat together, co-chaired committees, and there was no division of Republicans and Democrats into majority and minority blocs.
“Aren’t there two parties in this state?” he queried.
The staffer laughed, and replied, “Sure, there is [sic] business and trial lawyers!”
After all, there are business-sympathetic Democrats and trial lawyer-loyalist Republicans. Jeff Landry proves an example of the latter. That stands as part of the reason why there has been no rush of economic proposals from the new governor. Most of the business lobby concerned with deregulation and tax reduction lined up behind his GOP opponent Steve Waguespack, while the trial lawyers who once backed John Bel Edwards came over to Jeff Landry.
Ardent partisans will argue that a lack of Partisan dichotomy makes ideological boundaries in the Louisiana Legislature (and throughout the state) unclear, yet the muddle does allow for considerable cross-party alliances. (Pro-trial lawyer and anti-tort reform doesn’t necessarily mean pro-tax, any more than pro-business means embracing the rest of the GOP agenda.)
That allows for some real cross-party opportunities. Conservative GOP state Senate President Cameron Henry just appointed several Democrats to committee chairmanships and vice chairmanships – even though his party enjoys a 2/3 majority. The bipartisanship, in particular, has bolstered Orleans Parish’s influence, despite the increasingly Republican lien of Louisiana. Democratic legislative committee chairpersons from inner cities in other parts of the South are virtually extinct.
Now Jeff Landry wants to end all that.
Hidden in the call for the January 15 special session on redistricting was a proposal to reconsider, at least in part, the open primary system. The idea immediately drew fire from Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser, whose inaugural party on Jan. 8 at the Capitol Park Museum looked a lot more like Louisiana than the average celebration for a Republican election. African-American and Democratic faces littered the crowd. There was an active bipartisan spirit, reflecting the coalition which elected Nungesser to a third term.
Billy Nungesser also happens to be the son of Louisiana’s first modern Republican chairman and Commissioner of Administration who helped elect the state’s first GOP governor in 20th Century Dave Treen. “The open primary built the Louisiana Republican Party,” Nungesser exclaimed in the wake of the legislative call, noting the history. (Ironically, Edwin Edwards, who created the runoff system so he wouldn’t have to run three times in a gubernatorial election, often agreed with Nungesser’s sentiment in the Democratic governor’s later years.)
Bipartisan coalitions have allowed legislators to take somewhat heterodox stands from time to time. The leader of the pro-life forces in the Legislature is an African-American Democratic female named Katrina Jackson, after all. Some of John Bel Edwards’ staunchest supporters in expanding Medicaid under Obamacare were rural Louisiana Republicans.
Moreover, the open primary’s runoff system allows Republicans and Democrats to face strong opposition in the “general election” phase of an election year, rather than only worrying about keeping the party-faithful happy in the earlier closed primary. It forces them to reach out across ideological and racial lines. This has frustrated liberal Democrat leaders in the past seeking to purge conservative-leaning members from their caucus, and now it is the “bete noire” of Republicans holding power, as moderates continue to play a large role in the legislative GOP caucus and throughout the state.
Consequently, Jeff Landry has allies on the Democratic side equally seeking to get rid of the open primary, especially in congressional elections. Troy Carter ran against Louisiana’s Democratic Party establishment, and positioned himself firmly in the center and his successful bid for the 2nd Congressional District in 2021. Many Democrats to his Left were not pleased by his appeals across party lines which allowed him to beat Karen Carter Peterson, or his subsequent relatively moderate voting record in Congress ever since. Likewise, many local Republicans have never been crazy about some of the moderate, environmental positions adopted by his neighboring Republican Congressman, Garrett Graves of Baton Rouge, who regularly reaches across party lines
Interestingly, had the closed primary been in place, Jeff Landry might not have only served one term in Congress. He might be a relative economic moderate, but his social conservative stands place him far to the right of Charles Boustany – and helped engineer his defeat in 2012 for re-election to the United States House of Representatives. He probably would have bested Boustany in a closed primary and coasted to reelection in the merged GOP majority district. Landry has never forgotten.
As a result, while national attention focuses upon the creation of a second African-American congressional district in Louisiana, an unforeseen Battle Royale has formed which promises to cross racial and political lines starting this week. Moderates on both sides undoubtedly will point out that Louisiana has not been held hostage by the Left or the Right, as budgetary negotiations are often thwarted by the ideological extremes in Washington. Conservatives and liberals will counter retort, “Then what do party labels mean? Can’t we control our own standard-bearers?” Moreover, some Republicans will point out that Texas and Florida haven’t done too badly with the closed primary system, at least when it comes to business engagement and in-migration, at least compared to the Pelican State.
However, some in the real divide in the legislature, mainly between trial lawyers and business lobbyists, will note that the current system has allowed each special interest to have connections in rural and urban districts, and has spared Louisiana ideological conflict common amongst our neighboring legislative chambers.
With Open Primaries, no electoral district is ever truly completely gerrymandered. Republican voters matter in Orleans, just like Democratic voters matter in St. Tammany. The general election decides the candidate, not the party primary. And that’s the crux of the argument for ideologues on both sides of this debate.
This article originally published in the January 15, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
