BATON ROUGE - On Monday, US Representative Cleo Fields announced the start of a district-wide campaign urging voters to completely fill out their ballots at the polls.

The campaign began Monday night with a stop in Shreveport and appearances throughout the week in Lafayette, Alexandria and Baton Rouge.

It comes after Fields joined approximately a dozen others Sunday night in a federal lawsuit challenging the state's decision to suspend the May primary. That decision, Fields told reporters Monday, could come down at any moment.

"We may have one any second," Fields said. "I joined in on that lawsuit because I want people's votes to count."

Last Thursday, Governor Jeff Landry suspended the closed party primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives. Multiple lawsuits have been filed challenging the executive order in both state and federal courts.

"The election had already started, people who wanted to be elected had already qualified," Fields said. "I think Louisiana is setting a bad precedent in terms of putting the cart before the horse."

The governor's order came down just a day after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in Louisiana v. Callais. The Supreme Court ruled the state's congressional map unconstitutional due to racial gerrymandering. State legislators passed the map in 2024, creating a second majority-Black district that stretched from Shreveport to Baton Rouge. That district is District 6, which Fields represents.

"I was unopposed in my primary, so in a sense I'm already the nominee for the Democratic Party," he said.

As previously reported, those who agree with the Supreme Court's decision say the 2024 maps did not make sense.

"People need to be able to get to their representative and the representative ought to have an idea of what the common interests are in the area they represent," State Representative Mike Johnson told WBRZ last week.

At the same time, states like Alabama and Tennessee are entering special sessions to look at their own congressional maps. On Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new congressional map into law, adding four Republican-leaning seats.

"You know, as a nation, we're just better than that," Fields said.

Fields urged residents to fill out the May primary ballot completely, regardless of the suspension of the House races.

"Don't listen to the Secretary of State or the Governor, for that matter, because this is not resolved yet," Fields said.