As Republican Gov. Jeff Landry tries to shepherd home far-reaching reforms in Louisiana’s fiscal structure that would enhance his political stature, it looks as if he avoided a major hit to that with his party retaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

While the solid victory of GOP former Pres. Donald Trump will return him to office next Jan. 20 and appeared to aid in a pickup of four U.S. Senate seats, it’s looking largely stasis for the House. With about a dozen races still not definitively decided at this writing but several leaning the party’s way, it seems the House will remain in Republican hands and, in fact, projected to have the same number of seats — 220.

That, of course, is good news for the state’s Republican majority delegation, but really good news for GOP Reps. Mike Johnson and Steve Scalise. Johnson serves as the speaker and Scalise the majority leader, the top two positions in the chamber. The unprecedented tenure of the pair coming from the same state in those positions can continue only if Republicans retain control of the House.

If in fact that didn’t happen, Landry might have found himself in a heap of political trouble. That’s because Louisiana lost a GOP seat when Democrat state Sen. Cleo Fields won a newly reconfigured Sixth District part of a map implemented this year, creating two majority-minority districts instead of one, with just one such district that had become law in 2022 – at the behest of Landry, who spent political capital ensuring that particular two M/M map was adopted in a special session of the Legislature shortly after he and legislators assumed office.

Landry’s stated reason derived from a court case in 2022 where a federal district judge, prior to a trial on the merits, declared the 2022 map violated the law by having only one M/M district. A year later, the U.S. Supreme Court gave qualified approval to a similar case in Alabama, which then courts could apply to Louisiana’s.

But two significant differences in the cases made Landry’s enthusiasm – he said unless Louisiana acted the district court would, and not give lawmakers any control over a court map imposition – for the state redoing the map potentially premature, if not needless. First, a trial on the merits, which the Alabama case had, didn’t necessarily have to end up the same way, given somewhat different circumstances, such as that Alabama presented a clearer-cut instance of where reapportionment by race had better congruency with traditional reapportionment criteria such as protecting community of interests. As well, in the ensuing time span other judicial decisions could provide ammunition against having to accept a two M/M solution – which actually happened – and the case itself might provide enough difference to convince the judiciary to let a one M/M map survive. Some lawyers for the state believed they would win it (if after appeals), but it had to be continued and not abandoned as Landry and Republican Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill, Landry’s successor in that post, did.

Second, the Alabama case never dictated that in these situations – where a state’s proportion of M/M districts substantially differed from a minority group’s population proportion statewide – a state had to add an M/M district as a remedy. Indeed, Alabama chose to create two opportunity districts, or those that had a black plurality instead of a majority, as a response. Louisiana could have done the same, which would have increased the chances that a Republican candidate could have won – in fact, Fields barely avoided a runoff but might not have led at all in a district without a black majority – but Landry argued only for the particular two M/M solution.

It was an unforced gamble that appears to have paid off (and might become moot by next election cycle) but had it not with Democrats securing a one-seat majority (which one major predictive outfit thought was going to happen), in essence Landry would have become the Republican who cost the GOP complete control of national government for the next two years. That would have soured a lot of Republicans on him.

The big sigh of relief emanating from Republicans at their retaining House control perhaps is augmented the most by Landry.