Incumbent – Henry Burns (R – Term Limited in 2019)

District Map

House District 9

Vote History

Current District

House District 9 is located wholly within Bossier Parish and contains a mixture of fast growing suburbs, rural areas, and “inner city” precincts in Bossier City. It is a Republican leaning district that has tilted towards the Republicans even more in recent years, as Shreveport/Bossier City expands to the east, northeast, and southeast. It has a modest 20% black voter registration that has remained unchanged throughout the decade, thanks to strong suburban growth.

Curiously, its electoral performance, demographics, and even political history strongly resembles a neighboring state House district (District 1, represented by Republican Jim Morris), and is illustrative of the changing politics in north Louisiana. For years, this district was represented by Democrats, with the last Democrat (Billy Montgomery) as its representative from 1987 to 2007. Rep. Montgomery had little trouble being re-elected, but his being term limited forced him to look for other political options, one of which happened to be an open senate seat being vacated by a term limited state senator. Probably in recognition of the changed political climate in northwest Louisiana, he switched to the Republican Party in 2006. The switch, however, did not help him, as he lost the state senate race to Republican former legislator “Buddy” Shaw 57-43% in the runoff.

As another example of the changing politics of the district, a district that had been held by Democrats for years did not even see any Democrats qualifying for the open seat: two Republicans sought the seat, and the victor, Henry Burns, was elected by 87 votes. He is allowed to serve for two more terms.

Proposed District

In fast growing Bossier Parish, the redistricting issue was not which district/districts would be eliminated, but what to do with the excess population (District 8 was 6% overpopulated). The district shed most of its rural territory in the northern and southern ends of the district, while trading some precincts between neighboring districts around Barksdale Air Force Base. These changes reduced the black voter registration from 20 to 17%, and nudged the district a little more in the Republican direction. Republicans should have little trouble holding this seat. (UPDATED 9/8/2011) Rep. Burns was re-elected without opposition in 2011.