Qualifying for the Republican State Central Committee and that election itself is canceled, according to reports from The Advocate.
That election was set to take place on April 4.
The Louisiana Secretary of State's office alerted Lafayette Parish Clerk of Court Louis Perret that qualifying was canceled by the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal on Monday because of a pending lawsuit.
The lawsuit seeks to force the GOP to follow a state law that would require equal representation for women on its state committee; the GOP is fighting the lawsuit.
Qualifying was set to begin Wednesday and run through Friday.
Qualifying is still open for the Democrat State Central Committee and the Democrat and Republican parish executive committees.
Read The Advocate's full story here.
UPDATE: Today, the GOP issued the following statement:
Qualifying for the Republican Parish Executive Committees (RPEC) will proceed as scheduled today, between January 8 and January 10 at your local Clerk of Court's office.
Earlier this week, an appellate court issued an injunction [lagop.us20.list-manage.com] to stop the state from holding elections under a state-mandated redistricting plan. As a result, we WILL NOT be qualifying for the Republican State Central Committee (RSCC) this week.
To be clear, this ruling by the Court of Appeal only impacts/delays the election of members to the Republican State Central Committee and candidates wishing to qualifying for their RPEC should qualify this week, as previously scheduled.
Our goal is to conduct qualifying and have the RSCC election as soon as possible, while maintaining proportional Republican representation under our current Senate sub-district plan in our smaller, previously established districts.
A trial has been scheduled in this matter in April, but we are working diligently with the parties involved to expedite a final resolution before then and will keep everyone advised of our progress.
We appreciate the Secretary of State and his staff for their patience on this issue, and we look forward to working with him and the Attorney General to pursue a permanent fix to this unconstitutional statutory overreach.
Louis Gurvich, Chairman
Republican Party of Louisiana
