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2 Democrats, Republican join race for Louisiana’s new majority-Black congressional district • Louisiana Illuminator

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2 Democrats, Republican join race for Louisiana’s new majority-Black congressional district • Louisiana Illuminator


Former Congressman Cleo Fields, former state Sen. Elbert Guillory and upstart candidate Quentin Anthony Anderson signed up Wednesday to run in the election for Louisiana’s newly drawn, majority-Black 6th Congressional District seat.

Fields, 61, a Baton Rouge state senator, has the longest political history among the candidates and is the heavy favorite to win the race. The Black Democrat helped draw the lines of the seat as a member of the Louisiana Legislature and represented a district in Congress with similar boundaries from 1993 until 1997. 

Guillory, 80, a Black Republican lawyer from Opelousas, received the endorsement  last week of the state GOP,though the district where he is running leans heavily Democratic. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2015 and 2023 and for Congress in 2016 after serving as a state representative from 2007 to 2009 and state senator from 2009 to 2016.

Anderson, a 35 year-old Democrat who lives in Baton Rouge, owns a small marketing firm and helps run the Justice Alliance, a left-leaning advocacy organization. He ran unsuccessfully for the East Baton Rouge Metro Council in 2020. 

If elected, Fields said he would make lowering the prices of prescription drugs and expanding broadband internet access his priorities. He also wants to help smaller cities and towns in the 6th district access more federal infrastructure funding. Many of those communities don’t have enough of their own money to put up to draw down federal dollars right now, he said.

Guillory, as a congressman, would focus on crime and what he called an “invasion” of immigrants. He also wants to curb federal spending. He is upset the U.S. spends “billions and billions” of dollars in places such as Ukraine while American roads and bridges are crumbling.

Crime and infrastructure would also be priorities for Anderson if he was elected, though the Democrat has a more rehabilitative, less punitive approach to criminal justice concerns than Guillory. Anderson also said he would advocate for a higher minimum wage.

The younger Democrat hasn’t shied away from making Fields’ infamous run-in with federal authorities an issue in the campaign. At Wednesday’s press conference, he alluded to the FBI surveillance tape unveiled in 1997 that showed Fields, while out of elected office, accepting $25,000 in cash from former Gov. Edwin Edwards. Fields was never charged with a crime, but the video has hung over his public persona for decades and is often fodder for his political opponents.

“Are you suggesting that Cleo Fields is a crook?” WVLA-TV reporter Shannon Heckt asked Anderson.

“Yes. Oh yeah. Yes. For sure,” Anderson replied. 

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“Most of us confronted with $25,000 from a politician under federal surveillance, our first thought would probably be to walk away from that situation — not to ask for a rubber band,” Anderson said. 

Over the years, Fields has declined to talk about the specifics of the incident.

Former State Sen. Elbert Guillory, R-Opelousas 

Fields, who entered elected politics in 1987 at 24 years old as the youngest state senator ever elected, is confident he will win this race. He said he’s hoping to avoid a runoff election in December by winning the primary election on Nov. 5 outright with more than 50% of the vote.

Both Anderson and Fields said they would continue to support President Joe Biden as long as he is the Democratic nominee for another term in the White House. 

Biden’s poor performance in recent television appearances, particularly a debate with former President Donald Trump earlier this month, has raised questions about whether the 81-year-old is mentally equipped for his job. 

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“In a real sense, the Democratic Party has made its decision [to keep Biden in the race],” Fields said. “Now that could change, but the person who drives that decision is the president, and I’m going to support the president as long as he is seeking the nomination.”

Anderson said he would vote for Biden if he is the nominee, but added it is also necessary to have a conversation about the president’s fitness for office.

“I think what voters saw during the debate was concerning, and voters have a right to express that concern,” he said. “The presidency is too important to ask voters to lower their expectations.” 

Quentin Anthony Anderson
Quentin Anthony Anderson

The new version of the 6th Congressional District was created after a federal court ruling forced Louisiana to add another majority-Black slot among its six U.S. House seats. It spans from Baton Rouge to Shreveport, picking up portions of Lafayette and Alexandria along the way.

Black voters make up 33% of Louisiana’s population but only controlled one of the six congressional districts until this upcoming election. Now, two of the six seats have a majority-Black population.

U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, the current 6th District incumbent, was elected with a different iteration of the seat that was heavily Republican and majority white. He chose not to run for reelection when the district was redrawn to include more Black voters.

There is a chance a lawsuit could derail the new majority-Black seat, however. A group of white voters alleged the district is illegal because its boundaries were drawn based on the race of its voters. 

Fields represented the 4th Congressional District during his first stint in Congress. The boundaries of that district were ultimately thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled its lines were racially gerrymandered.

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1st Congressional District

U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, signed up by proxy to run for reelection Wednesday. Republican political consultant Jason Hebert turned in Scalise’s election paperwork to the Louisiana Secretary of State on behalf of the congressman.

Scalise will face at least two opponents in Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District, which includes portions of Jefferson Parish and the Northshore.

Randall Arrington, a Republican who described former Democratic President Barack Obama as a Marxist in remarks to reporters, said he felt Scalise was too nice to be a member of Congress. Mel Manuel, a Democrat who is transgender, hopes to bring awareness to LGBTQ issues. 

2nd Congressional District

Incumbent Congressmen Troy Carter, a Democrat from Algiers, signed up to run for reelection in the 2nd Congressional District using a proxy Wednesday. The U.S. House seat is centered around New Orleans. 

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State Rep. Delisha Boyd, D-Algiers, turned in the election paperwork on behalf of Carter, calling him a mentor.

“Together, we will build on our achievements and strive for even greater progress,” Carter said in a written statement. 

Carter will face two Republican opponents in Louisiana’s 2nd District: Devin Lance Graham of Gonzales and Shondrell Perrilloux of St. Rose.

Perrilloux told reporters she was running to help children.

3rd Congressional District

Incumbent Republican Congressman Clay Higgins signed up to run for reelection Wednesday by proxy, with state Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia, and state Rep. Beryl Amedee, R-Houma, as his stand-ins. 

Two Democrats, Priscilla Gonzalez of Lafayette and Sadi Summerlin from Westlake, also qualified to run against Higgins. “Xan” John of Lafayette has also gotten into the race as a Republican, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State website.

Gonzalez told reporters Wednesday she was running against Higgins because she is upset with his anti-abortion and anti-immigrant views. 

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U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Bossier City, plans to have one of his daughters submit his qualifying documents to run in the 4th District. Joshua Morott, a Republican who listed his address as being in Arkansas, signed up to run against the incumbent Wednesday. 

There were no qualifiers Wednesday for the 5th Congressional district, but the period to sign up doesn’t end until Friday.

Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Start, is expected to show up in person to qualify in the 5th District, which now includes parts of Baton Rouge after it was adjusted to account for the new 6th District boundaries.

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How to watch Louisiana baseball vs Cincinnati in Starkville Regional

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How to watch Louisiana baseball vs Cincinnati in Starkville Regional


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For the second day in a row, Louisiana baseball has its back against the wall in the NCAA Tournament Starkville Regional.

The No. 25 Ragin’ Cajuns (40-24) secured their 40th win of the season and kept their postseason dreams alive by beating Lipscomb 10-4 in an elimination game on Saturday, May 30. Now, the pressure is back on for seventh-year coach Matt Deggs and his squad as they face No. 24 Cincinnati (38-21) in another win-or-go-home matchup on Sunday, May 31 in Starkville, Mississippi.

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Against the Bisons, UL used four pitchers, and in total has used seven of its arms so far in tournament play. One of the Cajuns’ fresh arms heading into the matchup against the Bearcats is senior Andrew Herrmann. The lefty made his latest appearance during the Cajuns’ Sun Belt Conference tournament run on May 24.

While the Cajuns come into the match with some momentum, Cincinnati enters the match with a chip on its shoulder after losing its first game of the tournament on Saturday against regional host Mississippi State.

Watch Louisiana baseball vs Cincinnati on ESPN+

What channel is Louisiana baseball vs Cincinnati on?

TV: None

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Livestream: ESPN+

Radio: Varsity Network, 96.5 FM

Louisiana vs. Cincinnati will be available live on ESPN+ streaming for the first game of Day 3 of the Starkville Regional. Jack Kizer and Jack DeLongchamps will provide commentary from Dudy Noble Field.

What time does Louisiana baseball play Cincinnati?

Date: Sunday, May 31

Time: 2 p.m. CT

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Location: Dude Noble Field, Starkville, Mississippi

The Louisiana vs. Cincinnati game starts at 2 p.m. Sunday at Dudy Noble Field in Starkville, Mississippi.

Starkville Regionals schedule

Friday, May 29

  • Game 1: Mississippi State 10, Lipscomb 1
  • Game 2: Cincinnati 12, Louisiana 2

Saturday, May 30

  • Game 3: Lipscomb 4, Louisiana, 10
  • Game 4: Mississippi State vs Cincinnati, 8 p.m. CT

Sunday, May 31

  • Game 5: Louisiana vs Cincinnati, 2 p.m. CT
  • Game 6: Winner G5 vs Mississippi State, 7 p.m. CT

Monday, June 1

  • Game 7: If necessary, TBD

Shannon Belt covers high school sports and the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow her high school and Cajuns coverage on Twitter: @ShannonBelt3. Got questions regarding HS/UL athletics? Send them to Shannon Belt at sbelt@gannett.com.



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Louisiana Gov. signs Caleb Wilson Hazing Prevention Act

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Louisiana Gov. signs Caleb Wilson Hazing Prevention Act


BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — The Caleb Wilson Hazing Prevention Act has been signed into law by Gov. Jeff Landry.

This comes after HB 636, authored by Rep. Vanessa LaFleur (D-Baton Rouge), was signed by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate on May 19.

The measure redefines hazing, mandates annual prevention training, and strengthens penalties for student organizations involved in hazing.

The legislation is named after a Southern University student who was killed in 2025 after being punched in the chest with boxing gloves during an unsanctioned, off-campus fraternity hazing ritual.

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The law will go into effect on August 1.

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As Seas Rise, Louisiana Faces a Choice: Plan for Movement or Let Crisis Decide – Inside Climate News

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As Seas Rise, Louisiana Faces a Choice: Plan for Movement or Let Crisis Decide – Inside Climate News


The shoreline of Louisiana has never been still or fixed, though recent generations have treated it as such.

Since the last ice age roughly 20,000 years ago, around when people arrived in what is now the United States, sea levels have repeatedly reshaped aspects of the Gulf Coast. But today, human-caused warming is accelerating that ancient process, pushing Louisiana’s dynamic shoreline into conflict with cities, roads, ports and levees built to contain and stabilize nature.

A new study in Nature Sustainability argues that this history is a guide to what comes next. Coastal Louisiana, the authors write, is ground zero for coastal climate adaptation: a place where rising seas and sinking land are already reshaping where people live, and where planning for movement could offer more agency than crisis-driven displacement.

“We have got to remember that when people first came to North America 20,000 years ago, there had already been a lot of climate change,” said Jesse Keenan, a co-author of the paper and professor of sustainable real estate and urban planning at Tulane University. “There’s been a lot of sea level rise in the region, and Indigenous populations have always moved with that shoreline.”

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In geologic time, he added, “New Orleans has been there for just a blip. We’ve got to get it out of our heads that this is terra firma.”

The physical stakes are still stark. Southern Louisiana is facing a convergence of rising seas, wetland erosion, stronger storms and land subsidence, much of it worsened by decades of oil and gas canals cut through the coast. The state contains what theIPCC has identified as the world’s most exposed coastal zone, where the shoreline is projected to move more than 30 miles inland of New Orleans.

By comparing today’s warming trajectory with the last interglacial period roughly 125,000 years ago, when global temperatures were similar and seas were much higher, the new study estimates that the region could eventually face three to seven meters of sea-level rise and lose as much as three-quarters of its remaining coastal wetlands.

Keenan emphasizes that the point is not to forecast a sudden disappearance, but to widen the planning lens: if the coast is already moving, Louisiana has a chance to decide how people, infrastructure and economies move with it.

The danger is assuming everyone has the same ability to act on that choice. Social mobility, he said, depends on financial mobility— which means adaptation cannot simply tell people to move to safer ground. It has to move opportunity, too: jobs, industries, schools and affordable housing beyond the form of voluntary buyouts, a common managed-retreat tool in which governments purchase flood-prone homes and return the land to open space.

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“Outmigration is often framed as tragedy or failure, but in some cases it signals agency,” said Brianna Castro, a co-author of the paper, who highlights that this is a chance to plan around choices people are already making. 

Nearly all of Louisiana’s coastal zone has lost residents since 2000, and since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, about a quarter of Orleans Parish’s population has left the area, while more than half of rural Cameron Parish has relocated. 

“If you build jobs and you build homes, specifically affordable homes, [on] safer ground, people will come,” said Castro, who is a professor of urban sustainability at Yale University’s School of the Environment.

The opportunity, she argues, is to make those moves possible before crisis forces them on harsher terms—with schools, housing and work in places where communities can carry culture forward rather than be scattered by disaster. New Orleans at its core, she said, is not confined to its current footprint.

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“We’re not going to ‘lose’ New Orleans,” she said. “New Orleans has an incredibly rich local culture, and that will carry across the lake.” What must change, she argued, is the assumption that a moving coast can be met with immovable systems.
That idea resonates beyond Louisiana. Vivek Shandas, a professor of earth, environment and society at Portland State University who was not involved in the study, said the paper widens the frame from emergency response to long-term adaptation.

“We’ve been resettling for hundreds of thousands of years as a species,” Shandas said. “I think we’ve gotten really complacent with thinking that once we’ve set up a place and invested in it that it has to be like that forever. But the Earth is a very dynamic and incredibly fluid system.”

For that reason, he said, Louisiana is a “bellwether” for the rest of the country—a place where planners, policymakers and communities can study what adaptation strategies work before the same pressures intensify elsewhere.

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“It’s super important for people to recognize that what we’re ultimately calling for in this paper is a public, private, and civic engagement with adaptation policy, planning and practice,” said Keenan. 

The study points to immediate action projects, including reviving the canceled Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion—a $3-billion coastal restoration project designed to reconnect the Mississippi River with the Barataria Basin, the rapidly disappearing wetland area on the west bank of the river south of New Orleans—and advancing the Breton diversion on the other side of the Mississippi River. 

Unlike dredging, which moves sediment once and deposits it in place, river diversions are designed to restore a more continuous flow of sediment into wetlands, mimicking the processes that built the delta over thousands of years. Dredged material can create land, Keenan said, but it does not sustain the same root systems and ecological processes as a living riverine system.

“We’ve got a big challenge here, but this isn’t about the challenge. This is about the opportunity,” he said. “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. There is so much economic opportunity to engage with people and to build things. Data centers won’t give people more jobs, but adapting to climate change just might.” 

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Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.

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