BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana Republicans can keep the districts they want for their governing body.
Gov. John Bel Edwards has signed into law two measures that keep the Republican Party from having to follow a 1980s-era law that would have forced it to dramatically rework its State Central Committee districts.
Lawmakers overwhelmingly backed the measures sponsored by Rep. Beryl Amedee and Sen. Stewart Cathey, both Republicans, in the regular legislative session that ended June 1. Edwards’s office announced Wednesday that the Democratic governor agreed to the bills.
The Republican and Democratic central committees manage party activities, select state party leadership and determine delegates to the national party conventions, among other things. Members are elected to four-year terms.
Republicans didn’t want to have to comply with a 33-year-old law written by Democrats that would newly have applied to the GOP central committee districts because Republicans topped the 30% voter registration benchmark in Louisiana.
The law changes mean the GOP can keep its current plan drawn up in 2019.
