February 13 was the deadline for congressional candidates to file in Louisiana. Democrats and Republicans only needed a filing fee, but everyone else needed a petition of 750 signatures. No candidate running outside the two major parties submitted a petition. Rufus Craig, a Libertarian, had been petitioning, but he did not submit his petition because it didn’t have enough signautures.

The primary is May 16. The case law overwhelmingly says that independent candidate petitions cannot be earlier than the primary. States in which such early deadlines have been struck down for congressional or state office have been Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah.

Furthermore, Louisiana law since 2024 says no one can sign for an independent running for Congress if the potential signer is a registered Republican or Democrat. No other state has a restriction like that. Arizona did between 1973 and 1999, but it was struck down in Campbell v Hull, a U.S. District Court decision issued in 1999.

It is not clear if a member of a small qualified party is permitted to have a party label on the ballot. The law, which was passed in 2024, is very unclear. The Libertarian and Green Parties are qualified parties in Louisiana, but the 2024 law that changed the rules for congressional elections seems to say that only parties that polled 5% for president or statewide state office in the last election can nominate anyone and have the candidate’s party label on the ballot.

For the Democratic and Republican primaries, there are candidates from both parties in all U.S. House races, except that in the Second District, no Republican filed. Louisiana does not allow write-in votes, so under current law, the race for the Second District seat is already decided.