Incumbent – Thomas Carmody (R – Term Limited in 2019)

District Map

House District 6

Vote History

Current District

District 6 contains the settled affluent neighborhoods of eastern Shreveport roughly between Kings Highway and 70^th Street. It then crosses theRed River to include a handful of precincts near Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier Parish.

Like House District 5 to the south, this district was one of a the first state House districts to elect a Republican. It has a relatively low (12%, up from 10% in 2003) black voting population. The politics of this district are decidedly, but not overwhelmingly, Republican – GOP candidates can typically count on about 70% of the vote in elections here, although Senator Mary Landrieu curiously has received nearly 40% of the district vote in her last two re-election bids.

While the district has generally favored Republicans, it briefly flirted with the Democrats about two decades ago. Republican Art Sour was one of four Republicans elected in 1972 and served for 20 years. However, he was nearly defeated by a Democrat in 1987, and Democrat Melissa Flournoy then defeated him in 1991 by an unambiguous 58-42% margin. Flournoy only served one term, however: she unsuccessfully ran for the state Senate in 1995. Her retirement put the Republicans securely in control of the seat again, as Republican “Buddy” Shaw defeated a Democrat 2 to 1 in the primary, and was unopposed in 1999. When he retired in 2003 (and, curiously, successfully ran for the state Senate in 2007 after being out of the limelight for four years), Republican Mike Powell was elected in an all-Republican runoff with 69% – the lone Democrat who ran in the primary received only 11% of the vote.

Rep. Powell was re-elected without opposition in 2007 and could have served two more terms, but he abruptly resigned for family reasons in December 2007. A special election was held on the same day as Louisiana’s 2008 Presidential primary, and the victor was realtor/former Shreveport City Council member Thomas Carmody. He defeated fellow Republican businessmanBarrow Peacock(who had unsuccessfully run for a vacant state Senate seat in 2007) 52-48%. Rep. Carmody is allowed to serve two more terms.

 New District

Redistricting was not much of an issue with District 6: the district had 4% more people than necessary to create the “ideal” district, and the focus of the redistricting battle with regards to minority representation was on District 5 (represented by Republican Alan Seabaugh) to the south. Several precincts were traded among adjacent districts in Caddo and Bossier Parish that reduced the black voter registration from 12 to 10% and which gave the Bossier Parish precincts a little more influence: its portion of the district vote increased from 18 to 20%. Representative Carmody (or any other Republican for that matter) should not have any trouble winning here, as the changes slightly strengthened the Republican leanings of an already Republican district. (UPDATED 9/8/2011) Rep. Carmody was re-elected without opposition in 2011.