BATON ROUGE – The Legislature faces tight deadlines this week to keep food assistance flowing to 17% of the state’s residents and to adjust next spring’s election timetable.

The Louisiana House has approved an urgent request to repurpose $150 million by Friday to cover SNAP benefits for nearly 800,000 residents. The Senate plans to vote on the measure Wednesday.

Because of the federal government shutdown, Louisiana and other states are scrambling to find funds next month to pay for groceries provided by SNAP benefits. Louisiana is worried that, while it has the money, it is complicated to access it quickly, and the federal government may not pay it back.

The Senate passed two election bills 27-9 Saturday as the state awaits a U.S. Supreme Court decision on congressional district maps.

The bills would push back the timetable by primary elections by a month to give the state time to react to any court ruling that ordered it to redraw the maps—a process that could eliminate one of the two seats now held by Black representatives.

The vote came after objections from Democratic lawmakers. The House will take up the bills Monday.

The most likely source for continuing the SNAP benefits in November is the state health department’s budget.

The process for tapping into one of the state’s reserve funds, the Revenue Stabilization Fund, could take up to a month and would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.

About 793,000 people in Louisiana receive SNAP benefits. Of those recipients, 88,000 are elderly and 120,000 are disabled. Seniors and people with disabilities have priority to receive benefits in November.

Sen. Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said in an interview with the LSU Manship News Service that “there’s a lot of money available to fund this, but what we don’t have is access to it quickly.”

Government leaders are worried that the federal government might not pay back the state for $150 million advanced during the federal shutdown.

But the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, told members that the state will press for reimbursement.

The Legislature is in a special session aimed at pushing back the election dates to buy time while the state awaits a ruling from the Supreme Court in a case that challenged the creation of a second congressional district with a majority of Black voters.

The Supreme Court is considering whether race should remain a factor in drawing district maps.

About a third of the state’s residents are Black. Several white residents sued over the current maps, which created two Black-majority congressional districts out of the state’s six. Legislative leaders say they merely want to push back the primary elections next spring to give themselves more time to react to a court decision.

Black lawmakers called the two bills premature and unconstitutional. Sen. Samuel Jenkins, D-Shreveport, said they were “riddled with election law violations.”

Opposition got heated in a committee hearing Thursday when Sen. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans, said, “It sounds like the first step in the process of how we rig an election.”

Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, R-Port Allen, told the LSU Manship News Service that Sen. Carter later apologized to him regarding the heated discussions. Sen. Carter clarified, “I apologized that he took whatever I said personally.” But he said he did
not regret his opposition to delaying next year’s elections.