Incumbent – Pat Smith (D – Term Limited in 2019)

District Map

House District 67

Vote History

Current District

The first thing that a visitor coming to Baton Rouge by way of the “new” Mississippi River Bridge is likely to notice are the three major landmarks: the Exxon Refinery, downtown, and LSU. The area surrounding these landmarks is what makes up District 67. It starts in North Baton Rouge near Exxon and moves down Plank Road to include downtown and black neighborhoods between I-110 and City Park. From there, it stretches further south through “oldSouth Baton Rouge” to include most of LSU campus. At the southern end of the district is student housing directly south of Tiger Stadium, as well as some newer subdivisions sprouting along Brightside and River Road.

Though this technically is an inner city district, growth in the southern end of the district and a renewed interest in downtown has caused the black voter registration to decrease from 66 to 65%. However, the whites living in this part of Baton Rouge tend to be more liberal than those east of College Drive, and as a result, this is a solidly Democratic district that can be counted on to provide at least 75% Democratic support in elections.

This white minority has also had no impact on legislative elections, this is a district that tends to re-elect its representatives, although elections here tend to be hard fought between various black political factions – since 1987, no one has won with more than 64% of the vote.

When single-member districts were first created in 1971, Joe Delpit was part of a first generation of blacks elected to the House from Baton Rouge. He served until his 1991 retirement and was succeeded by John Guidry. Rep Guidry only served a partial term: the election of former state senator Cleo Fields created an open state senate seat, which Guidry successfully got himself elected to (he later was elected appeals court judge). In a 1993 special election, Yvonne Dorsey was elected, and served until term limits prevented her from running again in 2007 (she was, like Guidry before her, able to get elected to a state senate seat).

Three black Democrats ran for Dorsey’s seat; two of whom (School Board member Pat Smith and former Metrocouncilwoman Lorri Burgess) had run for the Legislature before and lost. Though Lorri Burgess led in the primary 39-36%, the remaining 25% of the vote went to a white attorney named David Brown, who received about 60% of the white vote. In the runoff, most of Brown’s vote went to Pat Smith, who won 55-45%. Rep. Smith is allowed to seek two more terms.

New District

Redistricting in this part of Baton Rouge was simple: though the district was 4% under populated, a 5% variance is permitted in drawing legislative districts. Therefore, this was one of a handful of House districts that was left unchanged. Democrats should have no trouble winning this seat, although residential growth along Brightside and River Road south of LSU could create a situation where white voters could be the “swing vote” in the future.