Monday afternoon, Louisiana lawmakers convene a special session to address the court-ordered redistricting of Louisiana’s congressional map and there are several other complicated issues on the agenda. The special session must conclude on January 23rd. Council for a Better Louisiana President Barry Erwin says legislators do not have a lot of time.
“I think eight days is difficult enough just to try and do the maps, but I think when you throw in Supreme Court redistricting, changing the entire election system to a party primary, something to do with campaign finance,” said Erwin.
Erwin says it takes at least five days to pass a bill and with an eight-day special session, he’s concerned some lawmakers are trying to tackle too much, including Governor Landry’s proposal to move from jungle primaries to closed party primaries.
“I’m just concerned that when you add things like that and some of the other matters too, one lawmakers themselves are goiung to have difficult time and two we have a lot of new lawmakers,” said Erwin.
The special session was called because a federal court ordered the Bayou State to redraw Louisiana’s congressional districts to include a second majority-black district by January 30th. Erwin legislators should just focus on redrawing the Congressional map.
“Redistricting is going to be a contenious enough issue as it is, right now it doesn’t look like there is any consensus over what those maps would look like,” said Erwin.
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