Louisiana House Unanimously Passes Bill to Move Presidential Primary to March

The Louisiana House this morning unanimously passed (84-0) HB 509. The bill shifts the Pelican state's presidential primary from the second (or third) Saturday in February to the Saturday after the first Tuesday in March. Should this bill pass the legislature and be signed into law, it would place the Louisiana primary on the Saturday after many of the state's southern counterparts hold contests on March 6 (Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia and very likely Alabama and Missouri).

The bill now moves on to the DemocraticRepublican-controlled Senate.¹ The bill is Republican-sponsored and just passed the Republican-controlled House, but obviously garnered bipartisan support. That is likely attributable to the fact that the legislation would bring the primary date into compliance with both national parties' delegate selection rules. Both parties, in other words, are on board with the move to March.

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¹ FHQ's go-to site for partisan control of state legislatures has been the National Conference of State Legislatures State Vote 2010 site. Unfortunately that is a static site and does not account for changes like the party switches in the Louisiana Senate since the first of the year.

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