Government of Louisiana facts for kids

The Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, the tallest state capitol building in the United States

The Louisiana Governor's Mansion

In 1849, Louisiana moved the capital from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. Donaldsonville, Opelousas, and Shreveport have briefly served as the seat of Louisiana state government. The Louisiana State Capitol and the Louisiana Governor's Mansion are both located in Baton Rouge. The Louisiana Supreme Court, however, did not move to Baton Rouge but remains headquartered in New Orleans.

The current Louisiana governor is Democrat John Bel Edwards. The current United States senators are Republicans John Neely Kennedy and Bill Cassidy. Louisiana has six congressional districts and is represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by five Republicans and one Democrat. Louisiana had eight votes in the Electoral College for the 2020 election.

In a 2020 study, Louisiana was ranked as the 24th hardest state for citizens to vote in.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola - located near the border to Mississippi - is the largest maximum-security prison in the United States.

Administrative divisions

Louisiana is divided into 64 parishes (the equivalent of counties in most other states).

• List of parishes in Louisiana
• Louisiana census statistical areas

Most parishes have an elected government known as the Police Jury, dating from the colonial days. It is the legislative and executive government of the parish, and is elected by the voters. Its members are called Jurors, and together they elect a president as their chairman.

A more limited number of parishes operate under home rule charters, electing various forms of government. This include mayor–council, council–manager (in which the council hires a professional operating manager for the parish), and others.

Civil law

The Louisiana political and legal structure has maintained several elements from the times of French and Spanish governance. One is the use of the term "parish" (from the French: paroisse) in place of "county" for administrative subdivision. Another is the legal system of civil law based on French, German, and Spanish legal codes and ultimately Roman law, as opposed to English common law.

Louisiana's civil law system is what the majority of sovereign states in the world use, especially in Europe and its former colonies, excluding those that derive their legal systems from the British Empire. However, it is incorrect to equate the Louisiana Civil Code with the Napoleonic Code. Although the Napoleonic Code and Louisiana law draw from common legal roots, the Napoleonic Code was never in force in Louisiana, as it was enacted in 1804, after the United States had purchased and annexed Louisiana in 1803.

While the Louisiana Civil Code of 1808 has been continuously revised and updated since its enactment, it is still considered the controlling authority in the state. Differences are found between Louisianian civil law and the common law found in the other U.S. states. While some of these differences have been bridged due to the strong influence of common law tradition, the civil law tradition is still deeply rooted in most aspects of Louisiana private law. Thus property, contractual, business entities structure, much of civil procedure, and family law, as well as some aspects of criminal law, are still based mostly on traditional Roman legal thinking.

Marriage

In 1997, Louisiana became the first state to offer the option of a traditional marriage or a covenant marriage. In a covenant marriage, the couple waives their right to a "no-fault" divorce after six months of separation, which is available in a traditional marriage. To divorce under a covenant marriage, a couple must demonstrate cause. Marriages between ascendants and descendants, and marriages between collaterals within the fourth degree (i.e., siblings, aunt and nephew, uncle and niece, first cousins) are prohibited. Same-sex marriages were prohibited by statute, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared such bans unconstitutional in 2015, in its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. Same-sex marriages are now performed statewide. Louisiana is a community property state.

Elections

Treemap of the popular vote by parish, 2016 presidential election

From 1898 to 1965, a period when Louisiana had effectively disfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites by provisions of a new constitution, this was essentially a one-party state dominated by white Democrats. Elites had control in the early 20th century, before populist Huey Long came to power as governor. In multiple acts of resistance, blacks left behind the segregation, violence and oppression of the state and moved out to seek better opportunities in northern and western industrial cities during the Great Migrations of 1910–1970, markedly reducing their proportion of population in Louisiana. The franchise for whites was expanded somewhat during these decades, but blacks remained essentially disfranchised until after the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century, gaining enforcement of their constitutional rights through passage by Congress of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Since the 1960s, when civil rights legislation was passed under President Lyndon Johnson to protect voting and civil rights, most African Americans in the state have affiliated with the Democratic Party. In the same years, many white social conservatives have moved to support Republican Party candidates in national, gubernatorial and statewide elections. In 2004, David Vitter was the first Republican in Louisiana to be popularly elected as a U.S. senator. The previous Republican senator, John S. Harris, who took office in 1868 during Reconstruction, was chosen by the state legislature under the rules of the 19th century.

Louisiana is unique among U.S. states in using a system for its state and local elections similar to that of modern France. All candidates, regardless of party affiliation, run in a nonpartisan blanket primary (or "jungle primary") on Election Day. If no candidate has more than 50% of the vote, the two candidates with the highest vote totals compete in a runoff election approximately one month later. This run-off method does not take into account party identification; therefore, it is not uncommon for a Democrat to be in a runoff with a fellow Democrat or a Republican to be in a runoff with a fellow Republican.

Congressional races have also been held under the jungle primary system. All other states (except Washington, California, and Maine) use single-party primaries followed by a general election between party candidates, each conducted by either a plurality voting system or runoff voting, to elect senators, representatives, and statewide officials. Between 2008 and 2010, federal congressional elections were run under a closed primary system—limited to registered party members. However, upon the passage of House Bill 292, Louisiana again adopted a nonpartisan blanket primary for its federal congressional elections.

Louisiana has six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, five of which are currently held by Republicans and one by a Democrat. Though the state historically flips between Republican and Democratic governors, Louisiana is not classified as a swing state in presidential elections, as it has consistently voted for the Republican candidate by solid margins since backing Democrat Bill Clinton in 1996. The state's two U.S. senators are Bill Cassidy (R) and John Neely Kennedy (R).

Law enforcement

Louisiana's statewide police force is the Louisiana State Police. It began in 1922 with the creation of the Highway Commission. In 1927, a second branch, the Bureau of Criminal Investigations, was formed. In 1932, the State Highway Patrol was authorized to carry weapons.

On July 28, 1936, the two branches were consolidated to form the Louisiana Department of State Police; its motto was "courtesy, loyalty, service". In 1942, this office was abolished and became a division of the Department of Public Safety, called the Louisiana State Police. In 1988, the Criminal Investigation Bureau was reorganized. Its troopers have statewide jurisdiction with power to enforce all laws of the state, including city and parish ordinances. Each year, they patrol over 12 million miles (20 million km) of roadway and arrest about 10,000 impaired drivers. The State Police are primarily a traffic enforcement agency.

Mardi Gras celebrations in the Spanish Town section of Baton Rouge

The elected sheriff in each parish is the chief law enforcement officer in the parish. They are the keepers of the local parish prisons, which house felony and misdemeanor prisoners. They are the primary criminal patrol and first responder agency in all matters criminal and civil. They are also the official tax collectors in each parish. The sheriffs are responsible for general law enforcement in their respective parishes. Orleans Parish is an exception, as the general law enforcement duties fall to the New Orleans Police Department. Before 2010, Orleans Parish was the only parish to have two sheriff's offices. Orleans Parish divided sheriffs' duties between criminal and civil, with a different elected sheriff overseeing each aspect. In 2006, a bill was passed which eventually consolidated the two sheriff's departments into one parish sheriff responsible for both civil and criminal matters.

In 2015, Louisiana had a higher murder rate (10.3 per 100,000) than any other state in the country for the 27th straight year. Louisiana is the only state with an annual average murder rate (13.6 per 100,000) at least twice as high as the U.S. annual average (6.6 per 100,000) during that period, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics from FBI Uniform Crime Reports. In a different kind of criminal activity, the Chicago Tribune reports that Louisiana is the most corrupt state in the United States.

According to The Times Picayune, Louisiana is the prison capital of the world. Many for-profit private prisons and sheriff-owned prisons have been built and operate here. Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly five times Iran's, 13 times China's and 20 times Germany's. Minorities are incarcerated at rates disproportionate to their share of the state's population.

The New Orleans Police Department began a new sanctuary policy to "no longer cooperate with federal immigration enforcement" beginning on February 28, 2016.

Judiciary

The judiciary of Louisiana is defined under the constitution and law of Louisiana and is composed of the Louisiana Supreme Court, the Louisiana Circuit Courts of Appeal, the district courts, the Justice of the Peace courts, the mayor's courts, the city courts, and the parish courts. The chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court is the chief administrator of the judiciary. Its administration is aided by the Judiciary Commission of Louisiana, the Louisiana Attorney Disciplinary Board, and the Judicial Council of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

National Guard

Louisiana has more than 9,000 soldiers in the Louisiana Army National Guard, including the 225th Engineer Brigade and the 256th Infantry Brigade. Both these units have served overseas during the War on Terror. The Louisiana Air National Guard has more than 2,000 airmen, and its 159th Fighter Wing has likewise seen combat.

Training sites in the state include Camp Beauregard near Pineville, Camp Villere near Slidell, Camp Minden near Minden, England Air Park (formerly England Air Force Base) near Alexandria, Gillis Long Center near Carville, and Jackson Barracks in New Orleans.