Republican US Senator Bill Cassidy is not a fan of Governor Jeff Landry’s proposal to move Louisiana from an open primary election system to closed party primaries. JMC Analytics pollster John Couvillon estimated a change to closed party primaries would cost as much as $90 million a year. Cassidy said the state has bigger priorities to fund.
“It’s like would you rather spend $90 million on fighting crime, or $90 million on new elections? $90 million on infrastructure, $90 million on teacher pay raises, $90 million on coastal restoration,” said Cassidy.
In next week’s redistricting special session, legislators will have the opportunity to debate a move to closed party primaries. Louisiana Republican Party Chair Louis Gurvich told The Advocate newspaper the party has been arguing for it for decades.
Louisiana’s open primary system has been around since the 1970s. In 2008 and 2010 Louisiana party-run primaries for just federal races, but Cassidy said it caused confusion and independent voters were upset they could not vote in a closed primary.
“So, it’s extremely unpopular, it’s been abandoned before because it was too expensive,” said Cassidy.
Landry has yet to provide any additional comments on why supports closed-party primaries. Supporters say it leads to better candidates in the general election and it would end the December run-off that occurs for Congressional races. But Cassidy said how Louisiana elects its officials is not broken, so why fix it?
“Again, he’s a fiscally conservative governor and so I’m not sure why anyone who’s fiscally conservative would be endorsing spending $90 million on something besides teacher pay raises, levees, or police,” said Cassidy.
Landry says political advisor Brent Littlefield says the 90-million dollar figure is pie in the sky. He says there’s a chance a closed party primary system will actually save the state money. He says they will not know until the bill is written and the Secretary of State’s Office has a chance to review it.
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