BATON ROUGE — Even though early voting is scheduled to start Saturday, Louisiana’s Republican leaders are likely to delay party primaries in congressional races after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the maps of the state’s six districts are unconstitutional, state lawmakers said.

State Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill said after the court ruling Wednesday that there is still time to suspend the party primaries and redraw the maps, a process that almost certainly would eliminate at least one of the two majority-Black districts.

Gov. Jeff Landry and legislative leaders know that any change in the election schedule is likely to be challenged in court.

Interviews with lawmakers in both parties show how many factors are at play.

“At least in my opinion, you can’t go forward with early voting, because you would be voting in districts that are unconstitutional,” Sen. Eddie Lambert, R-Gonzales, said in an interview.

Lambert explained that lawmakers might be able to use bills that have already been filed in the current legislative session to redraw the maps. But, he said, that could be “very contentious when you’re redrawing the districts, as it is in all situations.”

Another question is whether there would be time to revamp the process under Louisiana’s new closed party primary system. It allows Republican voters to choose only among Republican candidates and Democratic voters only among Democratic candidates in the first of what could be three phases of balloting.

In-person voting is scheduled for May 16 in the party primaries. The primaries could yield runoffs among the top vote-getters in each party, followed by a general election in the fall.

“I don’t know if you have enough time to have closed primaries, with districts drawn in that short period of time and then be ready for the November election,” Lambert said.

Democratic lawmakers argued that halting or delaying elections could create voter confusion and diminish voter representation.

“Hopefully, we do the responsible thing and let this election ?nish,” Sen. Larry Selders, D-Baton Rouge, said in an interview. “We don’t want to confuse the voters if we stop the election.”

In a 6–3 ruling, the Supreme Court invalidated Louisiana’s 2022 congressional map, striking down district lines that had previously been redrawn after legal challenges over minority voting power.

Louisiana’s map had been revised after federal district and appellate judges had ruled that Black voters, who make up roughly 30% of the state’s population, deserved more representation through a second majority-Black congressional district.

The Supreme Court’s ruling now raises broader questions about Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate based on race.

“Proper representation is being taken away,” Selders said. “This is monumental for the Civil Rights Act. People fought for a long time, people died, just for representation and it is disheartening that this is even happening right now.”

Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, said that the Supreme Court’s ruling is “an extreme disappointment for anybody who believes in fair representation.”

“In this case, the Supreme Court has weakened a lot of the protections that were in place since 1965 for black voters in particular,” he said.

Duplessis said the most pressing question is “not so much whether or not there will be new maps that are fought for and voted on, but when they will take effect.”

He said he did not believe the Legislature should alter the current elections, for which candidates had to file qualifying papers in February.

“It would be illegal to do that because the elections are already underway,” Duplessis said.

Any delay in the elections could also shake up the dynamics in a hotly contested race for the 5 th congressional district seat.

Republican U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow vacated that seat to run against U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, also a Republican. Seven Republicans and five Democrats are running for Letlow’s seat.

One of them, state Rep. Michael Echols, R-Monroe, said in an interview: “I think there’s one of two outcomes. Either we’ll run in the existing district just like we are now, and then two years from now, we’ll adopt an updated map, which I think is the map we passed twice over the last few years that the court overturned. That’s one path.

“Or the other path is we delay the election we’re currently having, and we adopt the map that we passed a few years ago,” Echols said.

He said he feels good about his own chances either way. But, he said, “I assume whatever decision is made will be challenged in court in the short term.”

He added that any changes in the election schedule are “going to be confusing for people because we’ve already been messaging that this race is happening.”

Under the most likely scenario, the state would continue with other elections on the ballot May 16, including the U.S. Senate race, in which Cassidy, Letlow and state treasurer John Fleming have all been spending heavily as they compete in the Republican primary.

There are also local races and five state constitutional amendments on the ballots for voters, whether they are planning to vote early starting Saturday or go to the polls on May 16.

Duplessis said that to continue with the current schedule for those elections while rescheduling the congressional ones to other dates would be “a huge issue, wasted taxpayer money. And that will ultimately lead to people staying home. And that will ultimately lead to voter suppression.”

Another factor is that President Donald Trump has been pressuring politically red states to redraw their congressional maps to try to help Republicans gain seats nationally to keep from losing control of the U.S. House of Representatives this fall.

Lawmakers say Gov. Landry would like to accommodate Trump.

But it was also Landry who pushed for the change to closed primaries in Louisiana from open primaries, in which candidates from all parties ran against each other in the first phase of the elections. The changes moved up the candidate qualifying deadlines and the primary election dates, adding to the time squeeze that officials now face in deciding what to do.

Gracie Thomas, Izzy Wollfarth and Sheridan White contributed to this story.