Louisiana’s House Bill 17, passed by the legislature on Friday, January 19, and likely to be signed by the Governor soon, is flawed. This is the bill to have party nominees for Congress.
It says that only qualified parties which polled 5% of the vote for a statewide office in the last state office election, or the last presidential election, may have primaries. Louisiana has three qualified parties that did not poll 5%: Libertarian, Green, and Independent Party. The bill has no provision for how those parties to nominate congressional candidates.
No member of those three parties would be permitted to petition, because the petition procedure to get on the general election ballot can only be used by candidates who are not a member of a qualified party.
There is no provision in the bill for these parties to nominate by convention.
It is unconstitutional for any state to completely exclude any adult citizen who meets the age requirement from running for Congress. However, the bill doesn’t take effect until 2026, so there will be a chance for the legislature to fix this problem in the regular 2024 session, which begins in April.
The last time Louisiana had party nominees in Congressional elections was in 2008 and 2010. The 2006 bill providing for congressional elections was Senate Bill 18, but it didn’t take effect until the 2008 election. Unlike the new bill, the 2006 bill provided that all qualified parties should have their own primary for Congress. The system used in 2008 and 2020 was repealed in 2010, but the repeal didn’t take effect until 2012, so 2008 and 2010 were the only elections in this century with party nominees for Congress.
