By Joseph Ax
April 30 (Reuters) - Republican Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry on Thursday suspended the state's May 16 congressional primary election just two days before early voting was set to begin, acting a day after the U.S. Supreme Court deemed the state's voting map illegal and gutted a key part of the landmark Voting Rights Act.
Landry signed an executive order postponing the nominating contests for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives until at least July 15 or until a date set by the Republican-led
state legislature, citing an "election emergency of unconstitutional maps."
The postponement gives the legislature an opportunity to draw a new map that eliminates at least one currently Democratic-held seat, and possibly two. President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans are seeking to maintain their control of the House in November's midterm elections, and Louisiana's new map could give the party a boost.
The Supreme Court disallowed the map delineating the state's six U.S. House districts. The state legislature had drawn a map with a second majority-Black district in response to a judge's decision that an earlier map with just one majority-Black district illegally harmed Black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
The Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling was powered by its conservative majority. Black people make up roughly a third of Louisiana's population.
Drawing such districts is a practice many states have followed for decades under the Voting Rights Act to protect the ability of minority voters to elect the congressional candidates of their choice. But the Supreme Court hollowed out a key provision of the law in Wednesday's ruling.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters earlier on Thursday that Landry had "no choice" but to suspend the election given the court decision.
Suspending the election and redrawing the map will scramble the campaigns for the state's U.S. House districts, which have been underway for months. The filing deadline for candidates was February 13, and mail-in ballots were sent to overseas voters weeks ago.
Other primaries, including a hotly contested race for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination between incumbent Bill Cassidy and Trump-endorsed U.S. Representative Julia Letlow, will proceed as planned, according to the executive order.
Louisiana's two majority-Black districts are both represented by Black Democrats. The state's other four incumbents are all white Republicans.
The Supreme Court's ruling opens the door for Republican-controlled states across the South to dismantle as many as a dozen Democratic-held districts that are predominantly home to Black and Latino voters, who have historically supported Democratic candidates.
The impact on this year's midterms beyond Louisiana remains unclear, with many states already deep into their electoral calendars. Earlier on Thursday, Trump said he had spoken with Republican Tennessee Governor Bill Lee about drawing a new map that would take aim at the state's only Democratic seat, a majority-Black district centered on Memphis.
Regardless, the court's decision likely means that Republican lawmakers in several states will seek to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2028 election.
Republicans and Democrats already have been waging a multistate redistricting fight ignited last year when Trump initiated an unprecedented mid-decade effort to redraw maps in Republican-led states, starting with Texas.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; editing by Paul Thomasch and Will Dunham)
