A hearing is scheduled for May 14th in a Democratic lawsuit seeking to reinstate the U.S. House primary elections. Last week, Governor Landry suspended the election after the Supreme Court ruled the state’s map an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Despite the suspension, the U.S. House races still appear on voting machines, and Congressman Cleo Fields, whose district is at the heart of the court case, says you should still indicate your choice.
“Don’t listen to the Governor, don’t listen to the Secretary of State about not voting the entire ticket, that that election is suspended. It’s suspended for now, but it doesn’t mean that it will be suspended tomorrow,” Fields urged.
Over the weekend, Fields added his name to the lawsuit. He says Governor Landry halted the election after it was already underway.
“This election had already started. People who wanted to be elected had already qualified. Some were unopposed. But the Supreme Court did not say, ‘Throw away those ballots,"” Fields said.
Fields had said Landry jumped the gun in calling off the U.S. House primaries, since there’s a mandatory waiting period with all Supreme Court rulings so that the losing party can file a petition for a re-hearing. But hours after Fields made that point, the high court bypassed that waiting period and ordered the immediate release of its ruling.
Fields pointed out that by the time Landry issued his executive order, ballots had already been cast.
“The Secretary of State sent out 100,000 ballots, as she should have, to voters not only in America, but voters outside of America in our armed services, fighting for our freedoms,” Fields explained.
Landry, who signed into law the map that was deemed unconstitutional, says in a statement that allowing the election to proceed under that map would undermine the integrity of the system and violate the rights of voters. Attorney General Liz Murrill rhetorically asked whether Louisiana should intentionally violate the rights of citizens under the current map.