This story was originally published by Louisiana Illuminator
One final vote in the Louisiana Legislature would allow the state Republican and Democratic parties to exclude unaffiliated voters from their primary elections starting in 2027.
House Bill 906, sponsored by Rep. Beth Billings, R-Destrehan, would be another massive change for elections in Louisiana after the state has seen a flurry of them recently.
“It gives control to the parties,” Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry, the state official who oversees elections, said at a Senate committee hearing Wednesday before the measure was advanced with GOP lawmakers prevailing in a 4-3 vote.
Louisiana moved to a semi-closed primary this year for its congressional races as well as seats on the state Supreme Court, state school board and Public Service Commission. All local and other state races are still decided by the jungle primary, which has been the traditional, dominant primary process used in Louisiana for decades.
Under the jungle primary, voters choose a candidate off a primary ballot in which everyone runs against each other regardless of political party. If one person gets over 50% of the vote, they win the election outright. Otherwise, the two candidates with the most votes face each other in the runoff election.
But starting with this past Saturday’s election, Louisiana forced registered Republicans and Democrats to vote in a primary that only features their political parties’ candidate for those handful of races. No-party voters get more flexibility and are able to choose whether they participate in the Democrat or Republican election, under the current rules.
If Billings’ legislation becomes law, it could potentially shift Louisiana’s party primaries that are now semi-closed to fully closed for congressional, Louisiana Supreme Court, Public Service Commission and state school board seats in 2027. That means no-party voters would be excluded from those partisan primary contests.
“It is, in essence, a private election. It is an election for the party’s candidate,” Landry said.
The Louisiana House approved Billings’ bill 67-19 last month with no debate. After getting Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee approval Wednesday, it only needs a full Senate approval before it heads to the governor’s desk.
Louisiana gave the major political parties a similar option in 2008, when partisan primaries were also used instead of the jungle format. That year, Democrats allowed no-party voters to participate in their elections but Republicans did not.
The arrangement proved very unpopular, and state lawmakers reverted back to the jungle primary system after the 2010 election cycle.
The Secretary of State is pushing for Billings’ bill, saying it will solve an election problem looming in 2028. In that year, Louisiana won’t have the ability to limit its presidential party primaries and races for the Democratic and Republican state central committees to only voters in their respective parties while also having congressional primaries open to no-party voters, Landry said. It would result in technical challenges for the voting system, according to the secretary of state.
“If this bill doesn’t pass, we have to come up with another solution to that problem,” she said.
Democrats on the committee expressed concerns over the legislation, saying it would disenfranchise no-party voters and confuse the electorate.
“I think we’re going in a direction, to me, where candidates and parties are choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their candidates,” Sen. Sam Jenkins, D-Shreveport, said.
