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Primer On Louisiana's Open Primary
By Mike Bayham
November 25, 2002

When Louisianans hear the phrase "the eyes of the nation are on you," it usually has the connotation that we are about to do something really stupid and that we should be mindful of our ways. It is not too different from the feeling you get when a parent shouts out your first, middle, and last name (and suffix if applicable). Considering all of the negative publicity the state's politics has received over the years, it is an understandably natural reaction. But this time the state's newsworthiness is not really bad... unless you are Mary Landrieu.

Thanks to the combination of the machinations of now convicted former governor and the mandated counsel of the Federal judiciary, Louisiana will hold two congressional elections on December 7th even though everyone else in the country finished their political business in November-even Florida!

Rather than talk about the race itself, I figured it was probably a good idea, considering the national implications of the elections, for me to discuss why there is a December election, how the Louisiana open primary works and came about and then tackle the election itself in a subsequent column. The inception of the open primary would not only revolutionize the state's politics but it would also help create the modern Republican Party in Louisiana.

Most of the states have party primary elections with only minor deviations in details from state to state. From there, the party nominees meet in the general election where, depending on the state, it may not be necessary for a candidate to win a majority of the vote to win the election.

Minnesota is probably the best state to cite in this respect as it operates under a plurality system, meaning all a candidate has to do to win the general election is to come in first place, regardless if they have a majority of the vote. It was under these rules that Jesse Ventura was able to win that state's governorship.

Louisiana's open primary system is radically different from the rest of the country and is the simplest, most democratic manner of conducting elections. Candidates, not political parties, are responsible for ballot access by meeting very basic requirements as stated by law. A candidate is also free to run for office under the party affiliation of their choice.

All of the candidates seeking a particular office run in the same primary, regardless of party affiliation and voters of all party affiliations vote in the primary. A candidate can win in the primary by receiving a majority of the vote. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, a runoff is held (technically misnamed in Louisiana as a general election) between the top two candidates.

Traditionally, the primaries for Congress were held on Saturdays in either late September or early October with the runoffs being held on the national Election Day. Having the congressional elections early did have some political consequences for some of the candidates running for Congress. By holding early elections to elect, not nominate, congressmen, Louisiana was not affected by national trends that could have a significant impact on the election.

For example, Louisiana was more or less immune to the Republican "tidal wave" in 1994 because all of the Federal elections were decided before the GOP's national momentum crested. That year Republicans had a shot at winning the Seventh Congressional District, then held by Democrat Jimmy Hayes. Because the election was held early, Hayes managed to barely escape with a primary win. Had the primary been held in November, Hayes would have likely been forced into a runoff with former Republican Congressman Clyde Holloway who might have won in a December second ballot.

Something else unique to Louisiana is that a runoff can contain two candidates of the same party affiliation. There have been many statewide runoffs between two Democrats and in 1999 Louisiana had its first statewide runoff between two Republicans. Ironically the successful candidate in the 1999 "Republican runoff" is now in the runoff for US Senate.

Other states began to toy with the concept of having open primaries and decided to shift away from the closed primaries. Unfortunately, they ended up adopting an "Isle of Dr. Moreau" version of Louisiana's system which ended with the Federal courts throwing out all of the open primaries except Louisiana's.

However Louisiana did not totally escape the wrath of the Federal bench. A group of voters sought to force the state to return to the closed primary system through the courts. While Louisiana's open primary was allowed to remain, it was ruled that because so many of the state's congressional delegation were being elected in the pre-Election Day primaries, the state needed to move up it's Congressional primary to the Tuesday National Election Day thus pushing the runoff, in case no candidate received a majority, to early December.

Though the open primary is considered to be one of the purest and most equitable ways of holding elections, many would be surprised to learn that it was conceived in the mind of a man who is sitting in a jail cell in Texas who was driven by Machiavellian reasons.

Back in the days when the Louisiana GOP could hold a convention in a phone booth, Louisiana was part of the Solidly Democratic South. After the carpetbaggers fled in the post-Reconstruction period and black voters were disenfranchised by the Constitution of 1898, the Republican Party disappeared.

What little that was left of the Republican Party in the state primarily consisted of patronage oriented politicians who bided their time between Democratic stays in the White House until hitting paydirt when the Republicans took back control of the executive mansion. Since 99% of the state's voters were registered Democrats, the national Republican administration had nobody else to turn to aside from the minuscule Republican camp to bestow favors and positions.

Sometimes the local party would field token candidates to remind the national Republicans that they still existed and were at least trying, though the candidates usually drew less than 4% of the vote if that. That all changed in 1964 when a wealthy oil man named Charlton Lyons ran for governor as a Republican against Democratic nominee John McKeithen. A well financed candidate armed with an impeccable character and a conservative philosophy, Lyons gave McKeithen a tough run and garnered a strong 39% of the vote.

After eight years of hibernation, the Republicans ran another strong candidate for governor named David Treen, who had come close to defeating then Democratic Majority Leader Hale Boggs for the Second Congressional district seat in 1968. Though Treen was the underdog, he was virtually unchallenged in the GOP primary. Because it was an open seat with a number of formidable contenders, the Democratic primary was to be a political bloodbath. Eight candidates of standing entered the Democratic primary along with nine other minor contenders.

The top two candidates in the primary were southwest Louisiana Congressman Edwin W. Edwards and Shreveport State Senator J. Bennett Johnston. Because neither won a majority of the vote, the two faced off against each other in a runoff for the Democratic nomination. The election was extremely competitive with Edwards topping Johnston by less than 5,000 votes out of over one million ballots cast. Now after having basically run two statewide campaigns in a short period of time, Edwards had to run another statewide campaign for the general election against Republican nominee David Treen.

Treen outdid Lyons' 1964 showing by winning 43% of the vote against Edwards. Though the Democratic nominee won the governorship with a comfortable majority, the grueling experience of having to wage two expensive campaigns just to become the party nominee and then have to run a third campaign against a fresh Republican candidate was not lost on Edwards.

In order to avoid having to endure a similar scenario in the future, Edwards, who was recently sent to jail, had legislation passed that would end the days of the "closed primary" in Louisiana and transform the electoral system into an open primary. The idea was to make the Republicans have to compete with the Democrats in the same election, thereby drowning the GOP under the heavy Democratic vote. What ended up happening was conservative voters abandoned the Democratic Party in droves and started to line up behind the Republican candidate. Also, the once tiny Republican registration exploded now that everyone, regardless of party, could now vote in the same election.

National Democrats often pay homage to Andrew Jackson as the father of their party while national Republicans revere Abraham Lincoln for his role in establishing the GOP. In Louisiana, the honor of being the father of the open primary and thus also the father of the State Republican Party goes to prisoner #03128-095, the governor formerly known as Edwin Edwards.