Louisiana Democrats Dropped a Pro-Life Monroe Lawmaker for a Candidate Twice Ruled Off the Tallulah Ballot

Pat Moore has represented Monroe in the Louisiana House since 2019, after twelve years on the Ouachita Parish Police Jury. In late August the Louisiana Democratic Party gave her its endorsement for the open 5th Congressional District seat, the one Rep. Julia Letlow is leaving to run for the U.S. Senate. Within a few weeks the party took it back.

The new endorsee is Antonio Wilson of Tallulah, a construction company owner who has never held elected office and who has been disqualified twice from running for mayor of Tallulah because judges found he had not proven he lived there long enough. Wilson's campaign announced the switch on Sept. 16.

The official explanation is arithmetic. State Chairman Randal Gaines told the Louisiana Illuminator that Moore won the most votes at the first meeting of the Democratic State Central Committee but fell short of a majority, because four members voted to endorse no one. "The initial endorsement of Pat Moore was premature based on the fact that four people voted to not endorse, and she didn't get 50% of the votes," Gaines said. A second round, held remotely with only Moore and Wilson on the menu, went to Wilson.

Gaines did not stop at the vote count. Many committee members, he said, will not back a candidate who opposes abortion rights and transgender rights. "My party members are typically very consistent with standing behind and supporting the national party platform," he said.

Moore's record explains the discomfort. She voted for the legislation that keeps transgender athletes out of girls' school sports. On abortion she has broken with her caucus more than once. On June 3, 2025, she and one other Democrat joined Republicans on a House committee to kill, 3-9, a bill that would have allowed abortions for rape victims under 17. On May 19 of this year she voted against House Bill 261, a broader rape and incest exception, which died 10-2. Moore was conceived when her mother, then 14, was raped. "I am not the author of life and death. None of us are," she told the committee. Speaking of her mother this week, she said, "She couldn't love me, touch me and name me but she gave me life."

The Democrats have a real case. An endorsement says what a party stands for, and a majority rule exists for a reason. Moore's position on rape exceptions is also out of step with most of the state. A 2023 survey by LSU's Manship School found 77% of Louisiana residents believe a woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion if she became pregnant because of rape. On that view, Democrats asked their nominee to hold a position most Louisianans share. Wilson has his own defense. He told the Illuminator he is a full-time Louisiana resident living in Tallulah, showed a reporter his driver's license and utility bills for a Tallulah address, and said no one has challenged his residency in this race. He says the confusion comes from his construction company still being based in Alabama, and blames the mayoral challenges on a feud with Tallulah officials over the city's water crisis. The Constitution asks only that a House member be an inhabitant of the state when elected.

The court record is harder to wave away. In 2019 a rival mayoral candidate challenged Wilson's qualifications, a Madison Parish judge disqualified him, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed on a 3-2 vote on Aug. 27, 2019. The house he listed had been boarded up and had no water service since 2014, the record shows. The rival testified that Wilson had told her that spring he "was in and out from here to Alabama," and his 2018 Louisiana voter registration application listed his last residence as Birmingham, Alabama. Seven years later Attorney General Liz Murrill's office challenged his qualifying for the May 16, 2026, mayor's race, and Judge Angela Claxton of the Sixth Judicial District Court disqualified him on Feb. 24 after testimony that the Tallulah house he listed was rented to someone else. "Based on actual facts, not what he declares them to be," Claxton said from the bench.

The platform argument also runs into the party's own history. The party's last governor, John Bel Edwards, calls himself a "pro-life" Democrat and in 2019 signed a heartbeat abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest. Edwards served two terms.

Dan McKay, the Bunkie attorney who also sought the endorsement, told KNOE: "The 5th District has much less participation than any other making about 80 percent of the endorsement vote come from outside the Fifth. Best wishes to Antonio and Pat but unfortunately this is not a very meaningful endorsement." KNOE also reported that Wilson is the state party's 5th District chair.

All nine candidates will share one ballot on Nov. 3. If nobody wins a majority, the top two meet Dec. 12. The Republican field includes Stewart Cathey Jr., Misti Cordell, Michael Echols, Gabe Firment and Austin Magee, and Echols reported more than $1 million in cash on hand as of July 18. Moore, in her own statement to KNOE, said the race "isn't decided in a committee room. It's decided by the voters of Louisiana's 5th Congressional District on November 3rd."

Photo: Ktkvtsh / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0