Incumbent – Mickey Guillory (D – Term Limited in 2015)

District Map

House District 41

Vote History

Current District

House District 41 is located in the heart of Acadiana and contains parts of three parishes: the northern fringe of Acadia Parish, the westernmost portion of St. Landry Parish around the town of Eunice, and five precincts in the southernmost part of Evangeline Parish. It contains a modest 20% black voter registration (most of that in the portion of St Landry Parish in the district), which has remained unchanged since the district lines were last drawn.

Politically, the district leans Republican at the top of the ballot, with the Republican voting edge coming from the portions of Acadia Parish in the district, although Democrats have a base of support in the precincts in Evangeline and St Landry. Like Acadiana in general, however, the district has moved to the right in recent years: the best Democrats have done here recently is the 42% of the vote Mary Landrieu received here in her otherwise successful 2008 re-election.

And unlike most of the rest of Acadiana, District 41 has been politically competitive in the past. Democrat Dale Sittig represented the district for three terms with little incident until he was successfully elected to the Public Service Commission in 1995. He was succeeded by Republican Greg Fruge, who obviously benefited from the presence of Mike Foster at the top of the ticket that year – he carried all three parishes and won in the runoff with 54% of the vote. The “Foster factor” also benefitted him in 1999: despite a stiff Democratic challenge, he increased his re-election percentage to 58% in the primary and again carried all three parishes. 2003 was a different story. Without the presence of a strong Republican at the top of the ticket, the three major Democratic candidates for governor (who were all from Southwest Louisiana) received 60% of the district’s vote, while Bobby Jindal received 31% in the primary. This Democratic dominance also seemed to carry over into the state house race, as Rep. Fruge was defeated by Democrat Mickey Guillory 58-42%. Rep. Guillory was unopposed for re-election in 2007 and is allowed to serve one more term.

New District

While redistricting in some parts of the state was a contentious process, in the case of District 41, the process was fairly simple. Though the district population was 4% over the population of an “ideal” district, a 5% population variance is permitted, and without the demographics to allow the drawing of a new black majority district, all that was done was the removal of one precinct from St Landry Parish near Lawtell and placing in an adjacent black majority district based in Opelousas. This change essentially had no political impact, but reduced the black voter registration from 20 to 19%.  (UPDATED 9/8/2011) While Rep. Guillory was re-elected without opposition in 2011, the recent movement to the right in this district will make it difficult for Democrats to hold onto the seat when he is term limited out.