Louisiana elects all its state legislators in the odd year just before presidential election years. All state legislators in both houses get four-year terms. The last election for Louisiana legislature was in 2007.

Louisiana has used “top-two” in all state elections starting in 1975. In the 2007 election, out of all 144 legislative races, only two incumbents were defeated for re-election in either round of voting. They were Rick Farrar, a Democrat in the 27th House district, and Carla Dartez, a Democrat in the 51st district. Both were defeated by a Republican.

A post at this site on October 17 mentioned the U.S. House elections held in Louisiana while that state used “top-two”. This is a supplementary post concerning U.S. Senate elections in Louisiana. That state held ten U.S. Senate elections during the years when Louisiana used “top-two”, and in none of them was any incumbent U.S. Senator ever defeated, in either the first or second rounds.

On September 17, U.S. Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah) introduced S.1688, to provide that the number of seats in the U.S. House for each state should be based on how many U.S. citizens live in that state. The bill is co-sponsored both Senators Jim Bunning (R-Ky), Tom Coburn (R-Ok), James Inhofe (R-Ok), David Vitter (R-La), Mike Crapo (R-Id) and Michael Enzi (R-Wy).

The 14th Amendment, sec. 2, says, “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.”

Senator Bennett’s web page has this U-Tube, showing the Senator speaking in favor of his bill. The U-Tube is 8 minutes and 23 seconds, and Senator Bennett purports to rebut all the reasons for opposing his bill. However, he never mentions the U.S. Constitutional provision quoted above. Bennett does say that if his bill were to become law, four states would lose representation in the U.S. House, but he does not say which states those would be. He says nine other states would gain representation in the U.S. House.