Louisiana’s Republican Governor Jeff Landry has canceled the State’s upcoming primary elections in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v Callais, which struck down Louisiana’s Congressional district map as unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered. A Progressive-Democratic Party candidate for Congress, Lindsay Garcia, and voter Eugene Collins (whose presence appears to be nothing more than a device to give Garcia standing to sue) has sued to stop the cancelation.
They also called on refraining “from disenfranchising any qualified Louisiana voter or de-listing any qualified candidate in any contest on the May 16, 2026 or June 27, 2026 ballot.”
“It cannot conduct a primary under a remedial map that does not yet exist, in a remedial proceeding that has not yet begun, before a court that does not yet have jurisdiction,” the suit reads.
Far more importantly, though, the State cannot conduct a primary under a map that is unconstitutional and so unusable. No voter is disenfranchised by canceling the present elections; they would, however, be wholly disenfranchised by their voting based on an illegal district map. Nor are any existing candidates delisted, except by being left to campaign in an illegally drawn district via an erroneously listed ballot.
None of the candidates of any of the parties know, at present, who their constituents are, and even more important, none of Louisiana’s voters know, today, who their prospective Representatives might be. The ones cannot campaign effectively, and the others cannot vote effectively.
It’s necessary that the State’s primary elections be held in abeyance until a usable district map is put in place. Once the new map is in place, all of the existing candidates, along with any new candidates who might appear, will remain eligible and listed on the ballots—just on the correct ballots. All of the voters will know the legal district in which they’ll vote, and they’ll know who their prospective Representatives will be.
The Progressive-Democrat’s suit is without merit and should be dismissed promptly as the apparen stall effort that it is.