Last year, Republican Pres. Donald Trump
nominated the GOP’s Seabaugh for a spot on Louisiana’s Western District Court. Perhaps
more than any other job in government, lawyers covet such spots as they last
for life (during good behavior, which rarely isn’t the case) and place a
minimal amount of constraints on their behavior.
But Senate Democrats have tried to slow walk these
appointments, infuriated that Trump winning in 2016 gave him the right to make
nominations stopping the trend of his predecessor towards placing judges more
likely to try to write the law than to adjudicate it. Seabaugh has held on for
about a year, but with 2019 elections looming and supposedly months before his name would come up for approval, he had to make a choice. Last year he had cut back in stumping for more ideological legislation that
he pursued in the past, in order not to really rock the boat as far as an anticipated confirmation process went.
Except, that is, for one high-profile incident. At the tail end of 2018’s Second Extraordinary session, Seabaugh succeeded in blocking reconsideration of a sales tax measure to reinstitute a 0.5 percent levy. Despite condemnation at the time from the chattering classes, Democrats, and even Republican state Rep. Julie Stokes, who wanted to send the measure through on the basis that the subsequent third special session of the year would cost thousands of dollars a day, Seabaugh’s effort – when that additional session reinstituted the tax at only the 0.45 percent level – ended up saving taxpayers an estimated $240 million over the next few years.
Since then, Stokes’ political career has gone into
retreat as her expensive campaign for Secretary of State crashed and burned,
while Seabaugh has become a legitimate candidate for election as the next speaker
of the House. He made that wish explicit in his announcement, which obviously
means he will run for reelection in his safe district.
That must bring a sigh of relief from the state senator
whose territory overlaps Seabaugh’s residence, Democrat John Milkovich. In 2007, Seabaugh
nearly knocked off the Republican incumbent in that district, and while
Milkovich has tried to dazzle voters with solid social conservatism in his
three years in office (the Louisiana
Family Forum rates him at a lifetime 100 percent voting record), his record
on economic issues leaves something to be desired with his right-leaning
district (the Louisiana
Association of Business and Industry assigns him a lifetime score of only
41).
Had Seabaugh challenged Milkovich, the former’s unquestioned
conservative credentials would have made him a favorite to upend the rookie
senator. Republicans now will have to look elsewhere to find someone to take a
clearly vulnerable Milkovich’s seat.
However, northwest Louisiana’s loss may translate
into the state’s gain. Of other names circulating for the House’s top spot – Stuart Bishop, Barry Ivey, and
Sherman Mack
– while all conservatives only Ivey has voted as conservatively as Seabaugh,
although Ivey’s insurgency style may not prove as attractive to GOP
representatives as Seabaugh’s greater emphasis on working through established corridors
of power. And conservatives especially will want their voices heard from
2020-2024, either as opponents of a reelected Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards or,
more likely, as an eager ally of his Republican successor wishing to remove the
impediments to solving state problems that Edwards constructed during his term.
Job security and a chance to assert constitutionalism
in making rulings commend themselves to donning the robes of a federal judge,
but Seabaugh’s decision to defer that gives him a chance to make a bigger
impact on Louisiana.
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