On May 4, the Louisiana Senate Government Affairs Committee passed SB 53, which would switch that state’s congressional elections from the current non-partisan system (except that party labels are permitted), to a standard closed primary. The bill would let each qualified party decide for itself whether to let independents vote in its congressional primaries.
SB 53 provides for primaries for all qualified parties. Louisiana now has 3 qualified parties (Democratic, Republican, Libertarian) and the Greens are about to qualify. If only one person filed in a party primary, then that primary for that office would not be held and the one candidate would be deemed nominated.
A similar bill is pending in the House, HB 358, but it differs somewhat from SB 53. HB 358 says that small qualified parties should nominate by convention, not by primary.
Since small parties do well to find one candidate per office, does it really matter which nominating process they use? Here in next-door Mississippi, none of the six small parties have ever had more than one candidate for any office.
It’s all academic, however: I have relatives in Louisiana and, believe me, legislators will be committing political suicide if they change the current system. (“We vote for the person, not the party!”) It’s simply not going to happen.
For details of Louisiana’s present election system, see the 8/25/04 and 10/15/04 posts on my blog.