BATON ROUGE -- The Democratic Parish Executive Committees (DPECs) in Lafayette and St. Landry parishes will team up to host a visit by the leadership of the Louisiana Democratic Party (LDP) on Tuesday, June 12. Two public meetings will bracket a day of private meetings with party constituents in Acadiana.

The Lafayette DPEC will host a continental breakfast for LDP Chairwoman Karen Carter Peterson and other members of the party leadership who will be in attendance. The breakfast will be held at the Holiday Inn on NE Evangeline Thruway in Lafayette, just south of I-10. The informal gathering will begin at 7:30 a.m. and run until 9 a.m.

Chairwoman Peterson and other members of the leadership team will then fan out across the city for meetings with various constituent groups.

At 5 p.m., the St. Landry DPEC will host a reception for Democratic State Central Committee members, DPEC members, Democratic elected officials and members of the Democratic legislative delegation from the area. The reception will be held at the Opelousas Civic Center, which is located just east of I-49 on Creswell Lane Extension.

At 6 p.m., Chairwoman Peterson will lead the Acadiana Democratic Exchange, during which legislators, elected officials and constituents will discuss the recently concluded Regular Session of the Legislature and the impact that five years of privatization and budget cuts focused on health care and higher education on the citizens and communities in the region.

The Democratic Exchanges will be a standard piece of the Days of the Democrat project which will run through July.

The Days of the Democrats will bring the leadership of the state party into each major population area of the state. The goals are to reconnect the party with its core constituents and to begin the work of building effective local and regional political operations based on DPECs and other state party structures.

The Days of the Democrats project will also include information gathering and fact-finding activities in each region. The party will compile, assess and synthesize the information gathered on these ventures to provide party members a common set of facts, common data and a shared vocabulary with which will serve as the basis for the formulation of future party strategy and platforms.

Day of the Democrats have been scheduled for the following regions and dates:

* Alexandria/CENLA, June 18;

* Baton Rouge/Capitol Region, June 20;
* New Orleans Metro Region, July 2;
* Northshore/Florida Parishes, July 3.

Day of the Democrats activities are now being scheduled for Monroe/Northeast Louisiana, Houma/Thibodaux, Shreveport/Bossier, and Lake Charles/Southwest Louisiana.

Check the party's calendar on our website for new dates and visit information.

If you'd like to get involved in the planning of a Day of the Democrats in your region, email us here.