u/Forsaken_Thought

Louisiana’s elected Republican leaders are debating whether to call off the May 16 primary elections for the state’s six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, even though absentee ballots have been mailed out and early voting in the elections is scheduled to start Saturday.

The GOP leaders had indicated the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in a redistricting case would not alter their plans for the 2026 midterm elections. But after justices handed down a decision in their favor Wednesday, they are now looking at contingency plans to cancel or delay the party primary election until a new map can be drawn and used this year.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s existing congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander in a ruling that might have national implications. The case in question, Callais v. Louisiana, challenged the legality of a second majority-Black congressional district the Louisiana Legislature, with a Republican majority, drew in 2024.

The Callais plaintiffs have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rush the release of a certified judgment, citing the need to redraw the map for the 2026 election cycle. According to their filing, Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry, the state’s top election official, does not oppose their request.

The secretary of state has declined to comment on the Supreme Court decision, explaining that the litigation is still in progress.

In a news conference, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill seemed optimistic state lawmakers could adopt new congressional maps in time to be used this year. That scenario is complicated by the fact that absentee voting for primary elections on May 16 has already begun and early voting starts in just two days.

State lawmakers, who have long anticipated the Callais decision, are already discussing what to do about the pending elections.

Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, R-Port Allen, who chairs the Louisiana Senate committee that oversees redistricting, said he is working with legislative leadership and statewide elected officials to come up with a plan for the congressional races. He did not provide any specifics.

One possibility being discussed among lawmakers is canceling the party primaries for the U.S. House races. Kleinpeter said he believed this would require legislative action, and that there are currently some bills in play that could be amended to postpone the primaries. However, any action along these lines wouldn’t take place until after early voting starts Saturday, as lawmakers are not scheduled to meet Thursday, Friday and the House is out until Tuesday.

Sen. Royce Duplessis, a Black Democrat from New Orleans, questioned whether postponing the House primaries that are already underway would break the law.

“Legally, I don’t believe they can do that,” Duplessis said. “But in terms of fairness, I believe that it is absolutely wrong for them to even be thinking about undoing the election that has already been done.”

Duplessis said removing the U.S. House races from the May 16 election would cause mass confusion and be a waste of state dollars.

Canceling party primaries after votes have been cast could also be met with court challenges under federal law, said Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, an organization that advocates for voting rights.

Yet Sen. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, said he called off a vote Wednesday on one of his proposals, Senate Bill 49, in case lawmakers want to use it as a vehicle to cancel or postpone the U.S. House primaries.

His original bill would remove Board of Elementary and Secondary Education elections from the state’s semi-closed party primary system next year. It could be amended to scrap or postpone semi-closed primaries for this year’s U.S. House races, making it easier to hold those contests later in the year.

This is the first time since 2010 that Louisiana is holding party-specific primary elections, a deviation from its usual jungle primaries in which all candidates, regardless of party, are put on the same general election ballot.

In addition to U.S. House and Senate primaries, party-only elections will are on the May 16 ballot for single seats on the state school board and Louisiana Supreme Court and two positions on the Public Service Commission. There are also five constitutional amendments for voters to consider. None of those elections are expected to be moved even if the U.S. House primaries were delayed.

Postponing the U.S. House races could put Republicans vying for the open 5th Congressional District race in an uncomfortable position. Not only because the district, as it currently exists, is likely to be substantially altered, but also because they have invested significant sums in the races.

If lawmakers opt to cancel the primaries, Kleinpeter believes there is plenty of time left in the session to amend and approve a bill on congressional redistricting by the end of the session on June 1. Legislators have not yet reached a consensus on what the new boundaries will look like, he said.

They have the ability to eliminate one or both of Louisiana’s majority-Black districts, though eliminating both would likely make some of the districts uncomfortably competitive for long-time incumbents such as U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Li said.

Legislators may also revisit their own districts. Under the Supreme Court’s new guidance, Republicans, who already hold a supermajority in both statehouse chambers, could redraw several seats to favor their party.

Kleinpeter said it’s unlikely legislative maps would come up during the current session and did not speculate on whether a special session would be called for more redistricting proposals. Lawmakers are up for re-election next year.

Two years ago, state lawmakers configured the current U.S. House map in response to a federal court ruling on a version of the districts created in 2022. U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick of Louisiana’s Middle District, an appointee of President Barack Obama, directed the state to enhance minority voting power to adhere to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark civil rights law created to bolster Black voting strength

Louisiana has six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, but only one favored a Black candidate before 2024 in a state where nearly a third of the population is Black. The map that was declared unconstitutional Wednesday has two seats where the voting population is majority Black.

Justice Samuel Alito, who was appointed to the court in 2005 by President George W. Bush, wrote the majority opinion in the Callais decision. In it, he scrutinized Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting laws or procedures that purposefully discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a language minority group.

“Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context,” Alito wrote.

Other states are moving quickly to take advantage of the Callais ruling. Last week, Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves called for a special session to convene 21 days after the Callais decision was issued to address the state Supreme Court map.

Florida has moved even quicker, approving new congressional maps just hours after the ruling that could add up to four more Republican seats.

A projection by Fair Fight Action, a progressive voting rights group based in Georgia, found that Republicans could ultimately secure up to 19 seats nationally in the U.S. House of Representatives because of the ruling. At the state legislative level, Republicans could gain up to 200 seats.

The high court effectively struck down a Black majority congressional district in Louisiana and limited a landmark civil rights law passed to protect the voting power of racial minorities.

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on April 29 threw out a congressional map in Louisiana that had been drawn to protect the voting power of Black residents, a decision that undercuts a landmark civil rights law.

An ideologically divided court sided 6-3 with the Trump administration and with the non-Black voters who challenged the map as relying too heavily on race to sort voters – and it did so just three years after upholding the 1965 Voting Rights Act’s vote dilution protections for racial minorities.

Writing for the conservative majority, Justice Samuel Alito called the map an "unconstitutional gerrymander" that violates the constitutional rights of the non-Black voters who challenged it.

The court's three liberal justices dissented. Justice Elena Kagan said the consequences of the majority's decision "are likely to be far-reaching and grave," rendering the protections of the civil rights law "all but a dead letter."

The decision could ultimately reduce the number of Black and Hispanic members of Congress and boost Republicans' chances of winning more seats in the U.S. House, where they currently have a thin majority. States now have a freer hand to rejigger boundaries of voting districts at all levels of government.

But the ruling − one of the most anticipated of the term − may not have been issued in time to make a significant difference in this year's midterm elections. A few states could try redrawing congressional maps but would likely face both practical and legal challenges.

Voting Rights Act was already weakened

Section Two of the Voting Rights Act tries to prevent legislative map drawers from diminishing the voting power of racial minorities by either packing them into one district or spreading them out across too many districts to have an impact.

Those protections became more important after the court, in 2013, struck down a different part of the act − one used to monitor states with a history of discrimination.

It will now be easier for Republicans to draw maps that favor their party, particularly in the South, where a voter’s race closely aligns with party preference.

Alito wrote that the voting rights law "requires evidence giving rise to a strong inference of intentional discrimination."

In her dissent, Kagan wrote that intentional discrimination is very difficult to prove.

That means, she said, that under the majority’s “new view” of the law, a state can systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power “without legal consequences.”

Multiyear battle over Louisiana's map

The racially and politically charged case grew out of a yearslong battle over Louisiana’s congressional map.

After the 2020 census, the state Legislature created a map that had only one majority-Black district out of six, even though Black people make up about one-third of the state's population.

When a group of Black voters sued, lower courts said the map likely violated the Voting Rights Act, the centerpiece legislation of the civil rights movement, passed after peaceful marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers on what became known as "Bloody Sunday."

But when the GOP-controlled legislature created a second majority-Black district in 2024, a group of self-described non-Black voters went to court in a separate action, arguing a “racial quota” cost the state a Republican seat in a narrowly divided Congress.

Supreme Court expanded the case

The Supreme Court debated the issue in early 2025. Rather than issuing a decision, however, the justices took the rare step of calling for a second round of oral arguments that more squarely put the future of the redistricting protections in jeopardy. They asked whether states may create legislative districts that comply with the Voting Rights Act without violating the bans on racial discrimination in the 14th and 15th Amendments – changes to the Constitution passed after the Civil War to protect the rights of formerly enslaved people.

Louisiana, which initially defended the map, argued instead in October that the Voting Rights Act’s redistricting protections are both “unworkable and unconstitutional.”

The Department of Justice under President Donald Trump likewise argued that it's become too easy for courts to invalidate maps as discriminating against Blacks without sufficiently considering whether race-neutral factors − such as incumbency protection and partisan advantage − played a role.

“The way Section 2 has been construed… is so far from the things that are likely intentionally discriminatory and, indeed, are affirmatively compelling gerrymanders that are unconstitutional,” Hashim Mooppan, a DOJ attorney, said during oral arguments.

NAACP called Voting Rights Act crucial

The attorney representing Black voters in Louisiana countered that the civil rights law has played a crucial role in diversifying leadership in the state and giving minority voters an equal opportunity to participate in the process.

The fact that Louisiana has never elected a Black statewide candidate shows the outsized role race continues to play in the state’s elections, Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said during the oral arguments.

Democratic voting rights groups had warned that Republicans could gain 19 more House seats if the court gutted vote dilution protections.

But J. Benjamin Aguinaga, Louisiana’s solicitor general, said Republicans risk turning safe districts for incumbents into competitive ones if they don’t create majority-minority districts, showing there are reasons other than the Voting Rights Act that might prompt a legislature to avoid spreading racial minorities among multiple districts.

Albertsons has already paid out $107 million to resolve a 2016 class‑action case in Oregon over allegedly misleading buy one, get one free promotions.

Now Washington State is bringing a new lawsuit over the same pattern. According to the filings, Albertsons and Safeway allegedly raise prices weeks or months before a BOGO event, so anyone buying the item beforehand pays more than usual. Then, during the promotion, the inflated price makes the second item appear free. Once the promotion ends, the price reportedly drops back to its normal level within about a month.

One example cited in the complaint includes a Gig Harbor store increased a bottle of olive oil from $6.99 to $10.99 for the BOGO week (a 57% jump) and then returned it to $6.99 after the sale ended.

The Washington Attorney General said shoppers believe they’re getting a deal, but in practice they’re just paying a higher price for the first item.

Other states are actively pursuing cases like this, but Louisiana doesn’t have anything comparable on the books right now. Our AG’s office has been focused on ten commandments, abortion, and Roblox, while routine consumer issues like grocery pricing practices don’t seem to any concern.

ETA other states consumer protection regarding grocery prices:

Walmart Price Accuracy / Shelf Price vs. Register Price Class Actions (2022–2024)

• Florida (2022–2023): Walmart accused of overcharging vs. shelf price.
• Missouri (2023): Walmart sued for systematic price inaccuracies.
• Illinois (2023): Similar claims about mismatched shelf vs. register pricing.

It's like we're completely okay with our shelf prices not matching our checkout prices.

From the VA website https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/memday.pdf

Some States Have Confederate Observances

Many Southern states also have their own days for honoring the Confederate dead. Mississippi celebrates Confederate Memorial Day on the last Monday of April, Alabama on the fourth Monday of April, and Georgia on April 26. North and South Carolina observe it on May 10, Louisiana on June 3 and Tennessee calls that date Confederate Decoration Day. Texas celebrates Confederate Heroes Day January 19 and Virginia calls the last Monday in May Confederate Memorial Day.

Gen. Logan’s order for his posts to decorate graves in 1868 “with the choicest flowers of springtime” urged: “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. ... Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.”

The crowd attending the first Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery was approximately the same size as those that attend today’s observance, about 5,000 people. Then, as now, small American flags were placed on each grave — a tradition followed at many national cemeteries today. In recent years, the custom has grown in many families to decorate the graves of all departed loved ones.

The origins of special services to honor those who die in war can be found in antiquity. The Athenian leader Pericles offered a tribute to the fallen heroes of the Peloponnesian War over 24 centuries ago that could be applied today to the 1.1 million Americans who have died in the nation’s wars: “Not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions, but there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the hearts of men.”

To ensure the sacrifices of America’s fallen heroes are never forgotten, in December 2000, the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed into law “The National Moment of Remembrance Act,” P.L. 106-579, creating the White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance. The commission’s charter is to “encourage the people of the United States to give something back to their country, which provides them so much freedom and opportunity” by encouraging and coordinating commemorations in the United States of Memorial Day and the National Moment of Remembrance.

The National Moment of Remembrance encourages all Americans to pause wherever they are at 3 p.m. local time on Memorial Day for a minute of silence to remember and honor those who have died in service to the nation. As Moment of Remembrance founder Carmella LaSpada states: “It’s a way we can all help put the memorial back in Memorial Day.”

Mississippi and Alabama celebrate Confederate Memorial Day today. South Carolina will celebrate Confederate Memorial Day on May 11th. North Carolina will celebrate Confederate Memorial Day on May 10.

North Carolina state legislation:

https://ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_103/GS_103-4.html

§ 103-4. Dates of public holidays.

(a) The following are declared to be legal public holidays:

(1) New Year's Day, January 1.

(1a) Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, Birthday, the third Monday in January.

(2) Robert E. Lee's Birthday, January 19.

(3) Washington's Birthday, the third Monday in February.

(3a) Greek Independence Day, March 25.

(4) Anniversary of signing of Halifax Resolves, April 12.

(5) Confederate Memorial Day, May 10.

(6) Anniversary of Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, May 20.

(7) Memorial Day, the last Monday in May.

(8) Good Friday.

(9) Independence Day, July 4.

(10) Labor Day, the first Monday in September.

(10a) First Responders Day, September 11.

(11) Columbus Day, the second Monday in October.

(11a) Yom Kippur.

(12) Veterans Day, November 11.

(13) Tuesday after the first Monday in November in years in which a general election is to be held.

(14) Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November.

(15) Christmas Day, December 25.

(b) Whenever any public holiday shall fall upon Sunday, the Monday following shall be a public holiday. (1881, c. 294; Code, s. 3784; 1891, c. 58; 1899, c. 410; 1901, c. 25; Rev., s. 2838; 1907, c. 996; 1909, c. 888; 1919, c. 287; C.S., s. 2959; 1935, c. 212; 1959, c. 1011; 1969, c. 521; 1973, c. 53; 1979, c. 84; 1981, c. 135; 1983, c. 1; 1987, c. 25, s. 1; c. 851, ss. 1, 2; c. 853, s. 2; 2017-57, s. 16B.6.)

While Mississippi and Alabama celebrate Confederate Memorial Day today and state offices are closed, South Carolina will celebrate Confederate Memorial Day on Monday, May 11.

https://www.admin.sc.gov/services/state-human-resources/benefits-and-leave/holiday-leave

2026 Holiday Schedule

• New Year's Day — Thursday, January 1
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day — Monday, January 19
• George Washington's Birthday / Presidents Day — Monday, February 16
• Confederate Memorial Day — Monday, May 11
• National Memorial Day — Monday, May 25
• Independence Day — Friday, July 3
• Labor Day — Monday, September 7
• Veterans Day — Wednesday, November 11
• Thanksgiving Day — Thursday, November 26
• Day after Thanksgiving Day — Friday, November 27
• Christmas Eve — Thursday, December 24
• Christmas Day — Friday, December 25
• Day after Christmas — Monday, December 28

​

https://www.nola.com/news/politics/louisiana-legislature-gender-sex-transgender-restoring-biological-truth-act/article\_7258a0f6-1611-4857-9298-d28b2b2d425c.html

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is backing legislation that would eliminate references to the term “gender” in state law and replace them with the word “sex.”

“Sex” would be defined in law as “an individual's biological sex, either male or female, as observed or clinically certified at birth. Gender identity and other subjective terms shall not be used as synonyms or substitutes for sex.”

The change “provides a uniform statutory definition of sex in Louisiana,” said state Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Pineville, who is sponsoring House Bill 578. It would be known as the “Restoring Biological Truth Act.”

Johnson noted the measure doesn’t remove references in Louisiana law to sexual orientation.

“This bill does not eliminate any anti-discrimination protection,” Johnson said. “This is primarily a definition and terminology clarification.”

He added, “It doesn’t eliminate the ability of somebody to identify any way they want to identify.”

But the proposal drew criticism from some advocacy groups.

“This is bill is just outright unproductive,” said Peyton Rose Michelle, executive director of Louisiana Trans Advocates. “The bill is simply to erase trans people from law.”

Sarah Whittington, advocacy director of ACLU of Louisiana, said the change could lead to a host of problems.

Whittington said Louisiana would be “at significant risk” of violating Title VII and Title IX, federal laws that prohibit gender discrimination in employment and education, respectively.

“It’s going to put this state at risk for the potential of violating federal law,” she said. “It does put at risk every institution that receives federal funding, and that does include LSU.”

Both Johnson, the bill sponsor, and Gary Evans, deputy executive counsel for the governor’s office, said that would not be the case.

In 2024, Landry and the Legislature created a law that bans transgender people from using school restrooms that align with their gender identity.

Evans told lawmakers that this year’s legislation uses the definition of “sex” from that 2024 change and applies it throughout Louisiana law broadly “to make the language and definition consistent.”

HB578 advanced out of the House Civil Law Committee Wednesday along partisan lines on a 6-1 vote, with Democratic state Rep. Ed Larvadain III, D-Alexandria, opposed.