“I think it’s gonna take us at least 24 hours to pore through the opinion to understand what exactly that opinion is telling us,” Gov. Jeff Landry said Wednesday morning.
“Certainly the Supreme Court said it loud and clear that the current map is unconstitutional,” he said. “What our options are, we’re basically working our way through that, and I will be discussing those options with the attorney general — I’ve spoken to her twice now — and with the legislative leadership.”
Attorney General Liz Murrill said the Legislature gets the first shot at drawing a new congressional map before the district court would do so.
Murrill said there is still time to redraw the maps for the ongoing 2026 midterm election cycle. The Legislature could suspend the dates for early voting, which is set to begin Saturday, and “push them into the future,” she said.
“They’re dates that we set. I think that they can be changed, and the election is not actually until November,” Murrill said. “So there’s time if they want to change those dates.”
State and federal law would not prevent the Legislature from drawing a new map this year, Murrill said. That’s different from judicial principles that limit a court’s ability to create a new map close to an election, she said.
“I’ll be looking to the Legislature to see which direction they want to go,” she said.
In a joint statement Wednesday morning, Louisiana Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, and House Speaker Phillip DeVillier, R-Eunice, said they were still working to understand the ruling.
“We are aware of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling today in the Louisiana v. Callais case, striking down Louisiana’s second majority-Black congressional district as unconstitutional and remanding the case back to the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana,” the statement says.
Henry and DeVillier added: “We are reviewing that ruling and meeting with our members, representatives from the executive branch, elections officials and counsel to determine next steps to be taken in the best interests of Louisiana voters and our state.”
Louisiana is holding primary elections earlier than in previous years because the Legislature, at Landry’s urging, moved the state from open to closed party primary elections.
Under the new closed system, primary elections for Congress are held in the spring to determine which candidates will represent each party in the November general election. Under the open system, primary elections were held in the fall.
The closed primary for is scheduled for May 16, with a potential run-off in June. Early voting begins Saturday.
