May 16 2026 Voter Guide
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Early voting is May 2-9, except Sunday. Election Day is May 16.
Visit GeauxVote to check your registration and find your polling location.
In this cycle, we have no Endorsements or Recommendations.
Introduction
In the last edition of our guide, we took some time to explain the ways in which vote burdening – the practice of scheduling too many god damn elections all the time – serves as an insidious form of voter suppression, one in which we here in New Orleans are the world’s leading experts. We did that mostly because we have one guy on the drafting team who’s been wanting to write about vote burdening in the guide forever, but that must’ve caused a monkey’s paw somewhere to curl because now everything’s gotten worse. As we outlined previously, thanks to Governor Jeff Landry, Louisiana has closed party primaries again after decades of open jungle primaries, which multiplied the number of elections and created a new level of confusion for voters unaware of their party registration.
But even that was not enough for Jeff Landry. In the wake of the US Supreme Court’s Callais decision gutting the Voting Rights Act, the country is on the precipice of a total reversal of the democratic gains made not only during the Civil Rights Movement, but even the last remnants of post-Confederate Reconstruction. Jeff Landry’s administration put Louisiana at the vanguard of that reaction against multiracial democracy by challenging Black Louisianans’ right to fair representation, and the Supreme Court obliged them. Landry celebrated the decision by cancelling elections for Congress in those new closed party primaries while they were already underway, an act as unprecedented as it is antidemocratic, pending new Congressional district maps from his toadies in the state legislature (and, perhaps, new district maps for state legislative offices and beyond) that will eliminate one or both of Louisiana’s majority-minority and Democratic-leaning Congressional districts. Tennessee has followed suit; Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama have announced their intentions to do so as well. This is the gift Landry has given the country: a crushing blow to American democracy, such as it existed.
So while the primaries for Congress will still be listed on your ballot (except for Democrats in District 1, where DSA member Lauren Jewett won the nomination unopposed), they will not count. The Senate primary elections still do, which is bound to confuse voters even more. That just might be the point, though. All this means Louisiana will get to enjoy one last Congressional jungle primary, for old time’s sake, in November, with runoffs, if necessary, in December.
Note: Uncontested races do not have entries.
U. S. Senator – Democratic Party
In Louisiana politics, Nick Albares most prominently served as a policy advisor to former Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards for a brief period in Edwards’s first term. Otherwise, he has spent most of his career in the nonprofit sector, having worked his way up the ladder at Volunteers of America Southeast Louisiana to a policy-focused Vice President role following his time with the Edwards administration. Before he held those positions, Albares worked for the anti-austerity think tank and state government watchdog Louisiana Budget Project (now known as Invest in Louisiana) and Catholic Charities.
Generally speaking, Albares consistently moderates his policies (or, at least, how he describes them) in favor of unambitious and uninspired “expansions of access”-type proposals. “Access” language always impedes effective demands for expansions of public goods and services. For example, as described in his campaign materials, “access to healthcare” means nothing without a guarantee. “Strengthening the system that delivers” health care, as Albares puts it, does not clarify what he would actually do and whether he would stand up against the private health care companies running that system. When directly asked in a Reddit AMA, posted as this guide was being finalized, whether he supports Medicare for All, Albares finally publicly confirmed that he does. This begs the question: Why be so evasive in describing your proposals when you could instead use bold and compelling language to make meaningful policy demands explicit upfront? Why use unsatisfying and mealy-mouthed politician-speak to hide your actual position in your campaign materials, and only take that position publicly in a Reddit comment buried beneath dozens of others?
If Albares does believe in big ideas – like Medicare for All – which would represent major expansions in the social safety net and an improved standard of living for working families, the bland rhetoric he employs in most outlets is to his detriment. To Albares’s credit, he is the only candidate in the race to explicitly call for the overturn of Citizens United, eliminating private prisons, and demilitarizing the police. These are proposals we really like, as do many other voters. It is puzzling why they are not emphasized in his campaign messaging.
Gary Crockett describes himself as a CEO; a music, film, and TV producer; and a crisis, risk, and cybersecurity consultant. His Instagram page has three pinned posts: One about his campaign, one photo featuring himself and his son boarding a private jet, and one of a mansion, presumably his own, accompanied by hashtags such as “#luxurylifestyle.” The “affordability” section of the “Issues” page of his website includes no policy proposals, but instead a general overview of statistics and facts about poverty in Louisiana that likely originate from AI. The same is true of every section of his “Issues” page.
While this year features our state’s first closed party primaries to choose party-designated candidates in decades, Jamie Davis has already been officially endorsed by the Louisiana Democratic Party. This is unusual, as parties in states with closed primaries usually do not weigh in officially on primary races. Setting this aside as a flaw of the Louisiana Democratic Party rather than of the candidate himself, Davis’s campaign is far more sophisticated than his opponents’. While it is unlikely Davis or any Democrat would defeat their eventual Republican opponent, Davis has more campaign infrastructure, a more thought-out platform, and the degree of grassroots volunteer support that a statewide candidate would need to hit the ground running after the primary and be well-prepared for November.
In contrast to his fellow candidates, Davis does make many firm and specific policy commitments. Davis advocates a “move toward a Medicare option for all,” presumably a commitment to a public option rather than the single-payer system usually referred to as “Medicare for All” as described by politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Davis is the only candidate in his field to feature insurance as a policy issue at all on his website and campaign materials, characterizing the situation for Louisianans appropriately as an “insurance crisis.” His platform highlights the need to reform Louisiana’s publicly-owned insurer-of-last-resort, Louisiana Citizens’, which offers coverage to residents of areas where private insurers refuse to offer coverage, as a means of protecting insurance companies’ bottom lines at the expense of people without other options. An independent Black farmer himself, Davis’s platform also features robust agricultural policy proposals that would benefit other small farmers facing pressures as a result of corporate consolidation of agriculture, which has an especially significant impact on the dwindling number of Black independent farmers. Finally, Davis’s environmental platform is most clear among the field in describing the problem and naming the culprits; namely, industrial pollution and petrochemical companies, respectively. Davis calls for the end of the rubber-stamp approval process for polluters, an increase in public health funding and pollution monitoring in Cancer Alley, and an immediate move toward an energy transition employing local workers.
In a bizarre remark, Davis described himself as a “fiscal conservative” and voiced concerns about federal debt (which is not real and cannot hurt you) when discussing the Trump administration’s spending priorities. This may have been merely a rhetorical maneuver to criticize the hypocrisy of the GOP’s “small government, low spending” brand in an era of unprecedented federal overreach domestically and where piles of money are burned with reckless abandon at the altar of mindless war, death, and destruction abroad. If that’s the case, we’d argue it’s a misstep. Our position is that “fiscal conservatism” is bad, the “debt crisis” is a made-up excuse for cutting services, and adopting right-wing language and arguments to describe yourself and your populist-progressive platform is not particularly effective politically. Conservatives have no moral compunctions about rank hypocrisy anyway, as you’ll see in the next crop of Senate candidates.
U. S. Senator – Republican Party
The next Senator for Louisiana should not be any of the individuals running under the Republican ballot line. Bill Cassidy is a trained medical professional, and there was hope that he would stand up as a critical voice against the Trump administration’s destruction of the NIH, NSF, and the RFK Jr.’s gravely-voiced dismantling of the FDA. It is true that Cassidy occasionally asks some “tough” questions, but when his vote mattered most, he towed the Republican line and voted to confirm RFK Jr. That the United States may soon lose its status as a country in which measles has been eliminated shows what Dr. Cassidy’s oversight has yielded. His Heritage Foundation conservative voting score for the current session is 63%, which is way better than John Kennedy’s and almost certainly a significant improvement on any of the MAGA sycophants running to replace him. But with friends like these, who needs enemies? Working people in Louisiana deserve far better than Cassidy or anyone else in the Republican Party will offer them.
If the recent May 5th debate shows us anything, State Treasurer John Fleming’s role in this election appears to be going down swinging, ideally with Julia Letlow (discussed below) in tow. Like Cassidy, Fleming was a physician, but he chose to utilize that power to write a D.A.R.E. style book on the dangers of drugs and very little else. The book has a single 2 star review on Goodreads.
Based on the amount of real estate dedicated to it on his website, the proudest moment in his career appears to be that he was the last staffer to leave the White House after Trump’s first term. During his congressional term, he had a “97% conservative voting record” and “fought against ESG investments,” referring to a forgotten front of the right-wing culture war focused on corporate environmental, social, and governance guidelines for investing. Other charming tidbits from his time in Congress include his memberships in the Tea Party Caucus and Israel Allies Caucus, as well as trying (and failing) to pass a handful of pro-life bills during the Obama administration.
Fleming has made opposition to carbon capture and storage (CCS) a cornerstone of his campaign. Fleming has taken on the cause no doubt in an effort to court a small but significant contingent of conservative voters mostly in the area around Lake Maurepas and other recreational hotspots who, faced with industrial expansion in their backyard rather than along Cancer Alley as usual, have mounted a significant opposition to CCS. While CCS is sometimes presented as a solution to climate change, in reality, it does not work, and instead serves as a way for wealthy petrochemical companies to claim tax credits for every ton of carbon they capture while continuing to build new toxic facilities as they have always done. So all that is to say: Fleming and other anti-CCS conservatives are correct to oppose the projects and their associated tax credits. However, when you talk to them about the issue, they characterize CCS as being part of the “Green New Deal” and attack it from that angle, and do not criticize petrochemical companies for their role in climate and ecological collapse.
Julia Letlow, like Fleming, is closely aligned with Trump and determined to be the one to make it to the runoff against Cassidy. According to The Advocate, Letlow and Fleming are both desperate to prove they are the most conservative candidate in the race. Her passions include expanding the oil and gas industry, anti-immigration policies, and “protecting children and mothers” (in the state that held one of the highest rates of maternal mortality while she has been in office). In another remarkable display of cognitive dissonance, she is a staunch supporter of RFK Jr.’s ‘Make America Healthy Again’ campaign (which champions vaccine disinformation) despite losing her first husband to Covid-19 in 2021. Do you feel insane? Am I insane? Has everyone gone insane?
Strap in with Mark Spencer for some of the wildest copy ever found on a campaign website, presented without comment. “We shall annex Canada, Greenland, Cuba, and our lands given away by Jimmy Carter”; “Illegals are barbarians and barbarians will never be offered any form of amnesty”; and “we need to fund the Postal Inspection Service to protect the unborn.” Spencer also finds himself “compelled by God to stand strong against the growing, degenerate ‘hookup culture’ of abortion and promiscuity which offers only death and eternal hellfire”. If you haven’t already crawled under the couch or slammed your laptop shut and spent time with friends and family, we suggest you take a break and do just that.
Now that you’re back with us, you can read his proposed Constitution of Canada. Or perhaps you can become entranced by the tone and cadence in his Fox 8 interview, where he appears shocked that everyone is just letting him say all of this stuff out loud. It is unclear whether this campaign is one of the most incredible bits of performance art to grace this nation, or if he really believes all of this.
U. S. Representative 1st Congressional District – Republican Party
California native Randall Arrington is a former political science professor and aviator in the Navy. In lieu of a formal campaign page, he has a public Facebook where he shares short lectures and campaign updates (in a flight jacket surrounded by tiny planes) with catchy titles like “Trans Terrorism In American Schools”. He appears to have taken no money from AIPAC.
Arrington is also the second published author on this list. In the description of the book he wrote during the Obama Administration, he claims that “we have an Islamo-Communist sitting in the White House, and he is methodically trying to destroy America.” Life could be a dream. He has also branched into fiction and wrote a novel about tactical naval aviators that was made into a 2014 straight-to-DVD action movie. For those keeping score, this one has a 3.6 star average on Amazon. According to his self-published IMDB page, his nickname is Teen Angel, he is 6’2”, and he “always makes sure his female movie stars have a bouquet of fresh red roses in their trailer.” A chill just ran down my spine.
You know him, you love him, you might’ve even donated blood to him. Steve Scalise is the incumbent in this race, and currently serves as the House Majority Leader. His priorities include “building the wall” and “draining the swamp”. Unlike Arrington, his campaign eagerly took almost half a million dollars from AIPAC between 2023 and 2024.
As we said in our 2024 Voter Guide, you may remember when he told a reporter he is “David Duke without the baggage” and jumped at the opportunity to speak at a White nationalist conference in 2002. Or perhaps you know him because he just can’t stop talking about all the wins the Republicans are bringing you this year, including that gas prices are lower than they were “two years ago” when they were “six dollars.” Regardless, he’s horrible in all the usual ways: he has a Planned Parenthood Action Fund Score of zero, a 3% lifetime rating on environmental voting records from the League of Conservation Voters (down 1% from the last time we checked in on him) and a shiny A+ from the NRA. Cue the big red “IRONIC, ISN’T IT” sign now.
U. S. Representative 2nd Congressional District – Democratic Party
Incumbent congressman Troy Carter is, in the words of our comrades-in-voting-guides over at Antigravity, probably going to win this seat again. That being said, it’s worth revisiting his highlights (midlights?) one more time to really relish in some of that fencesitting we’ve come to enjoy from him.
Last time he was up for election, we noted that he took money from some of our state’s biggest polluters (despite saying he wouldn’t), as well as fan favorites Entergy and AIPAC. Carter also warmly welcomed Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu when he took an afternoon off from conducting a genocide to shake hands with Congress. Instead of joining the official congressional ceasefire resolution, he wrote a strongly-worded letter to Biden. Still, when the consequences of his (in)actions finally came knocking at his door with the detention of Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Öztürk in the inhumane ICE facilities around Louisiana, he personally visited detention facilities and later publicly called for ICE to be abolished. Of course, this was not without a press conference where he looked around at American facism and asked “what are we, Communists?”, but one can only hope the ghosts of bad decisions past are pushing him to stand behind his words and stand up for his constituents.
For all of the snark presented here; it is impossible to talk about Carter without acknowledging the real threat that the recent overturn of Louisiana vs. Callais poses to his district and its constituents. The 2nd Congressional District is home to you and most of your loved ones, and it is diverse and beautiful and extremely hot in the summer. The racist gerrymandering by Louisiana Republicans (with the help of the Supreme Court) seeks to take away the voices of the people who make this city, this country, special. Troy Carter acknowledges that these voices are worth fighting for, and we agree.
Ready for some levity now? With Renada “Honey” Collins, who has been one of the few people to join the Democratic Party in the last year, you’ve got it. In the past mayoral election, she was memorable to those of us with too much time on our hands because she brought boxing gloves everywhere with her. She also announced her campaign in the form of a wedding invite. Her other websites (linked here and here for your viewing pleasure) presents graphic design choices that (when not generated by AI) can only be described as avant-garde.
Collins’ main focus is affordability in everything: healthcare, rebates for housing, and raising the minimum wage. On the same page, she also wants to “organize a church” that offers [sic] “children education,” “crystals,” and “energy.” Before we charm you right into that voting booth to vote for her, remember that during the mayoral race Collins was one of two candidates to bafflingly suggest she wants official city communications to be written exclusively in English. Each year we do our best to offer you some cake, but remember we will never, ever let you eat it too.
Associate Justice Supreme Court, 1st District – Republican Party
The First District of the Louisiana Supreme Court covers parts of Orleans parish, as well as Tangipahoa and Livingston. The Democratic Party did not field a candidate, so the winner of this primary will win the November general by default. With the closed primary system, Democratic voters will have no say in which judge takes this seat.
William “Billy” Burris It is instantly disqualifying to be a member of the Federalist Society, the organization behind the right’s successful 21st-century capture of the federal judiciary in addition to poisoning the legal academy and state courts. Burris is a member. He’s also backed by money from a Tennessee-based political action committee called First Principles PAC, which has spent at least $700,000 to put Burris on the bench. First Principles does its banking in Mclean, VA, which is also home to FedSoc godfather Leonard Leo. Leo is a donor to First Principles.
Burris is supported by the people who worked hard to capture the federal judiciary and destroy the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais. Burris is the candidate of the far right’s attempts to cement the current anti-democratic backslide.
Blair Downing Edwards is a former juvenile court judge in the 21st Judicial District, covering Tangipahoa and Livingston parishes, before joining the First Circuit Court of Appeals. She is the sister-in-law of former Governor Jon Bel Edwards.
PSC District 1 – Republican Party
Wallace “Wayne” Cooper II likes to wear a cowboy hat. On the LPSC, he promises to be “pro-business” while also insisting there will be “no more backroom deals” on the LPSC. Regrettably, candidates who promise the first thing usually lose their spine once in office. Should we believe Cooper? Well, he helped grow I-55 Internet into a large Louisiana company, serves on the board of Crime Stoppers of Tangipahoa, and worked on the cooking competition team “Blazed & Confused.” “Cooking is my true passion,” Cooper told Honeycomb Homes & Properties. Louisiana is likely to benefit most by keeping him off the Public Service Commission and encouraging Cooper to focus on his passion instead.
Stephanie Hilferty is currently State Representative from District 94 and has served in the Louisiana legislature for about 10 years, which gives her a modest leg up on some Republican candidates in this race in terms of having a working understanding of basic governance. But her record shouldn’t leave us tremendously optimistic that she will seriously regulate major regional utilities or fight water-hungry data centers—in fact, she’s pretty excited about new fossil fuel-hungry industrial projects. A self-described “Conservative Republican,” Hilferty promises transparency and reliability, as well as driving down energy prices, like every other candidate in the race, but she has repeatedly fought against raising taxes on businesses that could have covered much-needed repairs and upgrades in the state.
“Big John” Mason’s grandmother couldn’t pay her electricity bill before she passed, so he started doing research and watched every PSC meeting over the last few years on YouTube. What did he learn? That free markets “unleash human potential,” but energy isn’t a free-enough market. It’s hard to imagine a more incorrect conclusion, or anything more dangerous than this state deregulating its utility providers even further.
Mark Wright has served as State Representative from District 77 since 2017 and currently serves as Chairman of the House Transportation Committee. A “trusted conservative,” Wright has been a key architect of some of Louisiana’s tax changes, policies that fill the pockets of large corporations in the state while harming working people. His website offers few specifics on what Wright might bring to the PSC, but he has John Kennedy’s endorsement, wants more data centers, brags about attending an ALEC conference, and has been named the “Most Valuable Policymaker by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, a 100% Pro-Life Career Record from Louisiana Right to Life, a Family Advocate by Louisiana Family Forum, the American Conservative Union’s Achievement Award and Legislator of the Year for the Alliance for Good Government.” Wright considers these good things, we do not.
John Young is a lawyer and has been a mainstay of Jefferson Parish politics for over a decade, serving as Assistant District Attorney, Councilman-At-Large, and later Parish President. He has a “12 Point Plan” for the PSC, which includes the usual promise to lower rates, ensure grid reliability, and increase transparency. Young at least commits to requiring data-hungry companies to pay their own way on power generation and emphasizes expanding fiber and broadband access. It’s a low bar, but it’s better than nothing?
BESE District 1 – Republican Party
This race has been brought to you early this year by the U.S. Mint (yes, really). Republican Paul Hollis, a lifetime coin collector, has given up his seat on the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (essentially, a statewide school board) to take his love for all things dimes and quarters to DC to run the U.S. Mint. Of all the Louisiana Republicans to make it to D.C. this term, this one is at least somewhat endearing. Retired teacher Angela Hershey ran unopposed in the Democratic primary; this race decides which Republican will face her.
Former Congressman Joseph Cao currently sits on the board on an interim basis following Hollis’s exit. He previously represented New Orleans for two years in Congress, a fluke Republican win in a heavily-Democratic district thanks to the comical level of corruption displayed by his Democratic incumbent opponent. In tandem with the Landry party line, he is in favor of charter schools and expansion of LA GATOR. Like Ellie Schroder below, he also believes in improved mental health support in schools and has brief teaching experience. His website boasts some of the scariest scare quotes of this election, including that his father was “tortured in Communist ‘re-education’ camps for almost seven years” in Vietnam, as well as a tirade about supporting “biological sex-based protections in school facilities”. He describes these policies as “common sense” twice, but refuses to elaborate as to how they would be achieved without violating the privacy of the young children he claims to want to protect.
The brother of the aforementioned Hollis, Michael Hollis is “steadfast in conservative values” and wants to “expand charters” according to his website. He is the VP of the family’s insurance business, and believes that when it comes to making decisions about LA GATOR and LEAP (further privatizing or chartering schools), we should “let the free market decide”.
Ellie Schroder is a retired teacher and residential contractor. She is in favor of school choice vouchers and more opportunities for trade education in schools. Schroder simultaneously advocates for increased mental health support and stronger disciplinary policies in schools (presented with no comment). While this is not a personal indictment against Schroder, an editor’s note must be made to say that if you are running for an elected position, please make your Instagram campaign page public.
Judge Civil District Court, Division M
Though she was eventually allowed to run, Stephanie Bridges was disqualified in the 2023 race for Division B of Civil District Court in a ruling issued by her current opponent. She also narrowly lost to Marcus Delarge in the race for Section K of Criminal District Court. Her campaign website has no platform, her links to her social media are broken, and she seemingly has filed no campaign finance disclosures. Bridges’s constituency is built from West Bank residents who are not aligned with the dominant Algiers political machine headed by current Congressman Troy Carter.
Richard Perque ran unsuccessfully for a seat in Civil District Court in 2018, but this time it seems to be his turn. He boasts a truly gargantuan list of endorsements that includes, among dozens of other prominent current and former elected officials and other notables, six of seven city councilmembers, District Attorney Jason Williams, Mayor Helena Moreno, and the Orleans Parish Democratic Committee. Before the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell, he litigated against Louisiana’s same-sex marriage ban. Before running for judge, a position which requires officeholders to refrain from explicitly partisan activity and associations, Perque served on the Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee. We were unable to recommend his campaign at that time because of an unwillingness to totally reject mass surveillance technology when asked in our candidate questionnaire, among other policy differences. However, as a civil judge, under Louisiana’s legal system Perque would not have input on policy matters.
Judge Civil District Court, Division N
Sheryl Howard served two temporary-appointment stints of several months a piece as a judge in Civil District Court, in 2003-2004 and again in 2023. Her legal career has been entirely within private firms in Louisiana, working as a civil trial attorney and partner in various firms. Since 2003 she has been a notary for Southeastern Louisiana Legal Services’ Expungement and Divorce Clinics.
She has (like her opponent) not visibly elaborated or explained a unifying judicial philosophy, an approach to running the court, or what changes she would make on the bench. She has been endorsed by both Sheriff Michelle Woodfork and Forum for Equality PAC.
Currently a judge of Section B of First City Court and a 2012 Zulu King, Elroy James is now running for a promotion to the Civil District Court Bench (that promotion would only be in perceived stature; the new position would provide him the same material benefits as his current position). The First City court handles claims of up to $25,000 and eviction proceedings on the East Bank. James has practiced law for 20 years, as both a plaintiff and defense attorney and served as a Judicial Law Clerk in the Division “M” Civil District Court for the Parish of New Orleans during law school.
He has (like his opponent) not visibly elaborated or explained a unifying judicial philosophy, an approach to running the court, or what changes he would make on the bench.
Judge Criminal District Court, Section J
John Fuller has worked as a defense attorney in New Orleans and Louisiana for over two decades, starting as a public defender and most notably at his own firm, John T. Fuller & Associates. He is a fixture of the defense bar and an energetic trial lawyer; Fuller was part of Cardell Hayes’s defense team and has frequently clashed with the Orleans Parish District Attorney under both Cannizzaro and Jason Williams. In 2016, Fuller turned down an appointment from the Louisiana Supreme Court to serve as a pro tem (temporary) judge in Section D of Criminal District Court; according to Fuller, because the appointment would’ve prevented him from continuing to represent Hayes.
Fuller brings not only the perspective of defending clients against the State in court, but having himself been targeted by the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office. Back in 2016, Cannizzaro’s OPDA compiled a 200+ page report on Fuller’s supposed misconduct, disseminated that document to multiple state and federal law enforcement agencies, one of which shared some of the information contained therein with the press. This “dossier” was compiled and circulated while Fuller’s current opponent worked at the district attorney’s office. Fuller was publicly reprimanded by the Louisiana Supreme Court for interviewing witnesses in a case without first consulting those witnesses’ attorneys, the only substantiated detail from the dossier OPDA put out against him, and one to which Fuller admitted. Leon Cannizarro’s daughter, Laura Rodrigue (aka Bayou Mama Bear) and former Orleans Parish prosecutor herself, donated $1500 to Fuller’s campaign, so perhaps this is all water under the bridge.
While his campaign literature is short on concrete actions Section J could take under his control, Fuller does have one practical suggestion: scheduling a “trial week” in Section J, versus singular specific days for trials. It’s unclear from his website exactly how this scheduling change would function at Tulane and Broad, but the aim seems to be preventing long-term resetting of trials. Fuller has similar “tough but fair” pablum as his opponent.
Fuller’s campaign began, like many in Louisiana, on allegations of failure to pay taxes. The Louisiana appellate court on Tuesday denied his appeal to stay on the ballot (March 3) but the Supreme Court reversed that decision (March 11) calling the statue “ambiguous“ and wanting the electorate to have multiple candidates on the ballot.
However there are legitimate concerns that go beyond if he paid his taxes. Fuller received the endorsement of the Police Association of New Orleans (PANO) which was one of the first police unions in the South. In his email announcement concerning the PANO endorsement he stated, “as the son of a police officer, I’ve always respected law enforcement.” He has also included the PANO logo in the endorsement section of his campaign mailers. The Police Association of New Orleans (Aug 2012) filed motions to intervene and defend NOPD officers’ prior to the Court approving the consent decree. After the Consent decree was issued, PANO filed another motion (Jan 2013) arguing against the consent decree. PANO continued filling legal complaints against the commission created by the consent decree. It should raise an eyebrow that Fuller, a defense attorney, received the endorsement from the police, which used every available legal means to prevent the NOPD consent decree. PANO has also questioned the city for not representing an officer, who posted online comments about a Trayvon Martin rally that said, “Act like a thug, die like one,” in a wrongful death civil suit.
The biggest problem with Andre Gaudin Jr’s candidacy is this: he has been a prosecutor for the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office for over 15 years, using his legal mind to lock almost entirely indigent and almost entirely Black defendants in cages, supervising generations of young lawyers who did the same; and now he claims that he will fairly and impartially administer justice in a building where the prosecutors are entirely his former colleagues: either current OPDA lawyers or his Cannizzaro-era siblings-in-arms now working under Cannizzaro at Attorney General Liz Murrill’s office. A criminal court judge cannot “solve” or “fight” crime in New Orleans, nor is that the job of a judge. Our criminal legal system inflicts vast cruelty on not just defendants, but also people harmed by crime; that cruelty is urged first and foremost by prosecutors. Gaudin wants a promotion without engaging with the insidious harm inflicted by his office during his time there. The most charitable interpretation of a decade and a half of work at OPDA is that Gaudin utterly failed to hold his fellow prosecutors accountable while he was working with them, and nothing indicates that he intends to hold his colleagues across the years accountable when they appear in front of him and call him “your honor” for the first time with a smirk.
Gaudin’s pitch is one of data-driven efficiency that will clear out Section J’s notoriously heavy docket and his commitment to the future of New Orleans as evidenced by being a girldad. His campaign site claims he has earned a reputation (unclear with whom) for being “tough on violent crime and smart on justice,” which echoes his boss and District Attorney Jason Williams’s promises of being smart on crime. After a few months of flirting with reform in 2021, Williams quickly reverted to the exact policies of the Leon Cannizzaro era, such as charging juveniles as adults, reneging on an explicit promise, and then invited Cannizzaro’s Juris Doctorate-holding stormtroopers back into Orleans Parish, giving Cannizzaro a kind of Orleans Parish District Attorney Emeritus position. Despite Williams’s promise of intelligent, data-driven change, the Orleans DA ended up at the same policies and practices that New Orleanians voted against—and Gaudin was a key player in both administrations.
The Williams-Cannizzaro continuity is insightful to a Gaudin judgeship. Gaudin was a loyal Cannizzaro foot soldier for nearly a decade, and was perhaps the most prominent lawyer of Cannizzaro’s regime to navigate the transition to Williams’s DA’s office. These are the prosecutors that, like Gaudin, worked diligently to imprison New Orleanians at one of the highest rates in the state that imprisons people at the highest rates in a country that imprisons people at the highest rates in the history of the planet. Gaudin, though, was able to stay on, possibly because Gaudin and Williams share a love of data and corporate buzzwords. Leveraging the collected data of New Orleanians resulted in Gaudin’s programs like “Risk Terrain Modeling” and “Data-Informed Community Engagement” to, in Gaudin’s words, “help maximize resources and support partners at NOPD.” Gaudin’s campaign chair and former subordinate at OPDA Daniel Shanks bragged to realtors in 2024 that these programs were responsible for a drop in crime, though it’s unclear precisely how OPDA came to that conclusion. Elsewhere, the Gaudin-Williams-era OPDA shelled out at least a quarter of a million to former spies and Trump loyalist AI merchant Tranquility AI to spy on New Orleanians.
Constitutional Amendments
Louisiana has a cumbersome state constitution that requires statewide votes on amendments for things you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be constitutional matters. In recent years, they’ve become a way for the governor and legislative majority, that is, the far-right, to institutionalize and make more permanent some of their recent gains. These amendments are no different, and represent the latest effort in the Landry administration’s campaign to reshape state government in their image. There is an organized campaign encouraging voters to vote no on all five of the constitutional amendments, taking the position that all five amendments “shift power away from our communities[.]” Additionally, as voters in Orleans Parish watch the state invalidate their votes last year for Criminal District Clerk of Court last year, and voters across the state are disenfranchised by the suspension of the Congressional primaries, the amendments serve as a referendum of sorts on the Landry agenda. In March of last year, a similar “no on all” amendments campaign overwhelmingly prevailed, short-circuiting key facets of governor Landry’s power-grabbing agenda and erasing any misperception that Landry governs with a mandate. For procedural reasons, New Orleans DSA was unable to vote on official recommendations in time, so please read carefully and further supplement your research to make your own conclusions.
Proposed Amendment No. 1
Act 223 (2025 Regular Session) – Proposing to amend Article X, Section 2(B) of the Constitution of Louisiana, relative to state civil service; to authorize additional positions in the unclassified state civil service by law; to prohibit the removal of such positions except by law; and to specify an election for submission of the proposition to electors and provide a ballot proposition. “Do you support an amendment to allow the legislature to remove or add officers, positions, and employees to the unclassified state civil service?” (Amends Article X, Section 2(B))
This Constitutional Amendment started out as a bill written by none other than Senator Jay Morris from West Monroe. That name may sound familiar because Jay Morris is also the author of SB 256 and SB 217. SB 256 eliminated the office of Criminal District Clerk of Court for Orleans Parish which Calvin Duncan won in a landslide last November. SB 217 eliminated six judges from the Orleans Parish court system (3 of the 12 judges in Orleans Criminal Court;1 of 4 judges in Orleans Juvenile Court; and 2 of 4 judges in Orleans Municipal and Traffic Court) based potentially on faulty court data and by the author’s admission during testimony without consulting with anyone who practiced law or elected officials in Orleans Parish.
Constitutional Amendment 1 would allow the Louisiana Legislature to remove workplace protections of civil service workers. Civil service workers are people who work in the office for the state. Currently an independent commission helps determine which positions should be classified or unclassified. ‘Classified’ jobs are protected from politics whereas ‘Unclassified’ jobs are not and fall into the ‘at-will employment’ classification. At will employment legally allows an employer to fire you for any reason without warning. This essentially weakens job protections and increases political influence… but it gets worse.Line 21 of Act 223 states, “Additional officers, positions, and employees may be added to the unclassified service in the state civil service by law and such additional officers, positions, and employees may be removed from the unclassified service only by law.” This means that not only can staff titles be switched from ‘classified’ to ‘unclassified’ but this law can be used to target individual employees. We are currently witnessing the damaging results of a Republican trifecta in Louisiana. Do we really want to allow these same people the ability to fire entire departments or target individual employees if they don’t adhere to the whims of whichever political party is in charge? Do we want to give them the ability to legally fire women, Black people, or LGBTQIA individuals for absolutely no reason other than white Christofascist ideology? Civil service workers should not be fearful of political retribution for doing their jobs or showing up to work as their authentic self. Amendment 1 is an effort to turn back the clock. We don’t deserve to live in the dark ages because of what some chud from West Monroe wants.
Proposed Amendment No. 2
Act 218 (2025 Regular Session) – Proposing to amend Article VIII, Section 13(D)(1) of the Constitution of Louisiana, relative to certain effects and purposes for the proposed St. George community school system in East Baton Rouge Parish which shall be regarded and treated as a parish and shall have the authority granted parishes with respect to operating a school system, including the purposes of certain funding and the raising of certain local revenues for the support of elementary and secondary schools; to provide for submission of the proposed amendment to the electors; to specify an election date for submission of the proposition to electors and to provide for a ballot proposition. Do you support an amendment to grant the St. George community school system in East Baton Rouge Parish the same authority granted parishes for purposes of Article VIII, Section 13 of the Constitution of Louisiana, including purposes related to the minimum foundation program, funding for certain school books and instructional materials, and the raising of certain local revenues for the support of elementary and secondary schools? (Amends Article VIII, Section 13(D)(1))
Amendment 2 has a back story that is over 10 years in the making when predominantly white and wealthy residents of Baton Rouge wanted to create a new school district but after not succeeding in the Louisiana Legislature, they pivoted to seceding from Baton Rouge to become “St. George.” St. George created an entirely new city out of a large area of suburban neighborhoods, taking part of the East Baton Rouge Parish school system, motivated by race and class as documented by PBS (Separate and Unequal, July 2014). The St. George organizers kept filing petitions, lawsuits, and appeals but finally got lucky. The Louisiana Supreme Court’s April 2024 decision overturned the lawsuit challenging the incorporation of the City of St. George. They ruled that the St. George Transition District had the necessary authority to proceed based upon Act 361 of the 2020 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature. Which brings us to today.
Currently, in Louisiana, each of the 64 parishes operates its own independent school district. There are also five independent municipal school districts in the state: the Central Community School System, the Baker City School System, the Zachary Community School System in East Baton Rouge Parish, the Monroe City School System in Ouachita Parish, and Bogalusa City Schools in Washington Parish. St. George would be the sixth independent municipal school district in the state. Creating a new school system requires amending the Louisiana Constitution. That gives every voter in the state a say, not just St. George residents. The amendment must win a majority statewide AND a majority in East Baton Rouge Parish. Both must be met. Either one alone is not enough.
Approving the St. George school system is essentially green-lighting segregated schools in East Baton Rouge Parish but it also affects the rest of Louisiana. St. George Community School System would take 5 traditional schools, 2 charter schools, 1 closed site, and 3 parcels of land from the East Baton Rouge (EBR)Public School System. Approximately 12% of EBR staff work in St. George schools, if they reapply with the ‘new’ St. George community school system, they will lose their EBR tenure and vested health and life insurance. Other EBR staff across the district will also feel the impact as EBR public schools are projected to lose $110M in combined local tax revenue and state funding, creating a potential $71 million budget gap, if the ‘new’ St. George community school system is approved by voters. As enrollment shifts across the district, reassignments and layoffs cannot be ruled out. Furthermore EBR carries $361.5M in retiree benefit obligations and the proportional share for St. George schools is $57.8M. St. George Community Schools do not have to contribute to the retirement of those who have already retired from a school located in St. George; they only have to cover the retirement of new hires for the ‘new’ St. George. Basically the retirement costs for teachers & staff who already retired from the schools St. George is taking over; stay behind to be funded by East Baton Rouge Parish.
The split could change how state education dollars flow statewide and districts across Louisiana could feel it. The law provides a temporary four-year buffer for affected districts but afterwards school districts in Louisiana are on their own for figuring out ways to fill the gaps in their budgets for school funding.
The impact doesn’t stop at those 7 schools and what happens in East Baton Rouge will not stay in East Baton Rouge. Constitutional Amendment 2 increases racial and economic segregation in East Baton Rouge school districts and could cause public schools across the state to receive less state funding.
Proposed Amendment No. 3
Act 222 (2025 Regular Session) – Proposing to amend Article VII, Section 10.8(A)(1), (2), and (4), (B), and (C)(1) of the Constitution of Louisiana, to enact Article VII, Section 10.17, and to repeal Article VII, Sections 10(F)(4)(d), 10.1, 10.8(A)(3) and (C)(3), and 10.16(A)(9), relative to monies in the state treasury; to repeal the Education Excellence Fund within the Millennium Trust, the Louisiana Education Quality Trust Fund, and the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund; to apply monies held in those funds to liabilities of the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana and to require local public school systems to pay a teacher pay raise with savings realized from payment of those retirement system liabilities; to require additional state general fund expenditures for the Minimum Foundation Program relative to such pay raises; to direct the state treasurer to take certain actions with respect to monies in repealed funds; to provide for calculation and transfer of such monies to the Overcollections Fund for use by specified entities pursuant to outlined restrictions; to execute technical changes; to provide for submission of the proposed amendment to the electors; and to provide for related matters. Do you support an amendment to fund a $2,250 teacher pay raise and $1,125 support staff pay raise by utilizing the remaining savings from paying down the debt of the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana with monies from certain constitutional funds? (Effective January 1, 2027) (Amends Article VII, Section 10.8(A)(1), (2), and (4), (B), and (C)(1); Adds Article VII, Section 10.17; Repeals Article VII, Sections 10(F)(4)(d), 10.1, 10.8(A)(3) and (C)(3), and 10.16(A)(9))
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” If this amendment sounds a little familiar to you, it’s because 65% of Louisiana voted No to an eerily similar amendment on March 29, 2025. Well that Constitutional Amendment is back on our ballots after shedding some of its baggage around property tax and homestead exemptions. Amendment 3 would eliminate state education trust funds that support higher education and K-12 schools. Money from those funds would be used to pay off teacher retirement debt, which in theory, will allow local districts to raise teacher salaries. Louisiana teachers currently receive a $2,000 annual stipend, this Constitutional Amendment would replace the stipend with a $2,250 permanent pay raise.
However there’s a catch, there’s always a catch. So let’s do some math and figure it out.
- Question 1: If my teacher has a $2,000 stipend and their salary is $50,000, how much is their gross pay before taxes?
- $50,000 (salary) + $2,000 (stipend) = $52,000 before taxes.
- Question 2: If this amendment passes and my teacher’s stipend is replaced with a $2,250 raise, how much is their gross pay before taxes?
- $50,000 (salary) -$2,000 (stipend) + $2,250 (raise) = $52,250 before taxes.
- Question 3: How much more money does my teacher make if Amendment 2 passes?
- $52,250 (after amendment 2) – $52,000 (before amendment 2) = $250
And that’s the catch, Amendment 3 effectively gives a $250 raise, or about an extra $30 each month, to teachers. While the amendment does have the support of the main statewide teachers’ unions, our teachers deserve better: Specifically, they deserve a real raise which requires the Minimum Foundation Program (MFP), the K-12 Funding Formula for Louisiana public schools, to be adjusted. It requires BESE and the Legislature to work together in order to give a permanent raise to teachers and not a stipend that can be discontinued. Our teachers, our students, and our schools deserve so much better than what Amendment 3 is offering.
Proposed Amendment No. 4
Act 221 (2025 Regular Session) – Proposing to amend Article VII, Sections 10.15(F)(1) and 18(A) and (B) and to add Article VII, Sections 20.1, 20.2, and 21(P) of the Constitution of Louisiana, relative to ad valorem taxes; to authorize certain payments to certain parishes; to provide for the classification of certain property; to authorize the exemption of certain property under certain circumstances; to provide for effectiveness; to provide for submission of the proposed amendment to the electors; and to provide for related matters. Do you support an amendment to allow a parish to reduce or exempt property tax on property held as business inventory and to provide for the classification of Public Service Property? (Amends Article VII, Sections 10.15(F)(1) and 18(A) and (B); Adds Article VII, Sections 20.1, 20.2, and 21(P))
You may have seen ads on social media or received a mailer that says Amendment 4 “creates more jobs, better wages, and lower prices.” If you’re thinking that sounds like ‘trickle down economics’ then you hit the nail on the head. Amendment 4 is nothing more than trickle down economics where parishes have the ability to eliminate the inventory tax on corporations in exchange for “more jobs, better wages, cheaper prices.” Let’s look around at what we get when corporations pay less taxes, shall we?
At least 88 of the largest corporations in America paid no federal corporate income taxes for fiscal year 2025, despite enjoying substantial pretax profits in the U.S. The news that Walt Disney which made $8.3 billion USD and paid ZERO federal income tax broke the same day as it was announced they werelaying off 1,000 employees. Lower corporate taxes create jobs, you say? United Airlines, which made $4.29 billion USD and also reported ZERO federal income taxes in 2025, raised its checked bag fee five weeks ago by $10 and is raising fares by as much as 20% this summer despite making 10% more money than last year. Lower corporate taxes create cheaper prices, you say? Tesla laid off 22% of its Austin, Texas factory workers the same year that it made $5.7 billion USD in revenue and paid zero federal income tax and full-time worker’s average annual salary was stagnant at $47,147 but don’t worry, they pinky-promise since they paid less taxes they will increase employee wages.
What is being left out of these snappy sound bites from proponents is that property taxes on business inventory are a key source of revenue for public education and local governments. Eliminating them would reduce long term stable funding and create gaps in school funding, public safety, and infrastructure that individual tax payers (all of us) would have to fill via higher sales and/or property taxes. We have seen in New Orleans what happens when cities face budget shortages, austerity cuts to the Office of Resilience and Sustainability and passing on grants to make recycling equitable in the city. Under capitalism, lower corporate taxes don’t benefit workers or consumers, they only benefit the company.. Amendment 4 is nothing but another corporate tax cut in a state that continually puts profits over people.
Proposed Amendment No. 5
Act 219 (2025 Regular Session) – Proposing to amend Article V, Section 23(B) of the Constitution of Louisiana, relative to the mandatory retirement of judges; to provide that a judge shall not remain in office beyond his seventy-fifth birthday; to provide for submission of the proposed amendment to the electors; and to provide for related matters. Do you support an amendment to change the mandatory retirement age for judges from seventy to seventy-five, provided that a judge may continue to serve to complete a term of office? (Amends Article V, Section 23(B))
Amendment 5 is surprisingly simple in its proposal, do you support increasing the age limit of judges from 70 to 75? This does not mean that once a judge turns 75 they must retire and have to vacate in the middle of their term. Instead this amendment means that a judge can continue running for office (or re-election) UNTIL they turn 75. Depending on the judicial position, this means that judges could continue serving until they are 80 to 85 years old. Advocates for Amendment 5 (a ‘Yes’ Vote) say that the older judges bring experience to the courts and a mass turnover could increase case backlogs or bring instability. They also argue that many judges who are appointed pro term are usually the same ones who were forced to retire under the current statute. Advocates also point to the disparity between women who often seek political careers later in life than men and that the current age requirement disproportionately affects women judges. Opponents of Amendment 5 (a ‘No’ Vote) believe increasing the age limit to 75, would decrease openings and reduce opportunities to elect new judges and expand representation. Slower turnover could reinforce existing inequities and reduce progress toward a judiciary that reflects Louisiana’s communities.
Endorsements vs. Recommendations
An endorsement represents a direct material investment from our membership for a candidate, including volunteers and securing the support of National DSA when applicable. Our endorsement requires the candidate to be a member of our chapter. The process is initiated with a resolution signed on by at least 1% of our membership in good standing at a general membership meeting. The candidate will attend a Q&A interview curated by members, and requires a majority vote with 25% quorum from our membership after chapter-wide debate. Our chapter has endorsed candidates under this endorsement process for US Congress, School Board, State House, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, City Council, and Democratic State Central Committee.
National DSA endorsements are initiated by the chapter and require a local endorsement, a review from the DSA National Electoral Commission, and approval by the National Political Committee, DSA’s national leadership body. Devin Davis and Margee Green have received national endorsements in the past.
In contrast, a recommendation can be initiated by any member by presenting a recommendation resolution at one of our monthly general meetings. These recommendations require the consent of a majority of members in a quorate meeting with at least 10% of membership in good standing. Recommendations will be made explicit in voter guides, but do not devote member time and resources to a given campaign as a chapter priority like an endorsement does. A lack of recommendation in a given race should not be interpreted as condemnation or praise of any particular candidate(s).
This guide is written and researched by members working with the New Orleans DSA’s Voter Guide Working Group and is approved by elected chapter leadership. We hope you’ve enjoyed your time with us. Join our team and help us build a better future.