Bossier courthouse gang has rough political week

This week, Bossier Parish Republican Sheriff Julian Whittington went off the reservation that surely chagrins the rest of the parish’s courthouse gang – who then suffered another setback.

Normally, all of the parish’s elected officials plus GOP Bossier-Webster District Attorney Schuyler Marvin and the other offices and power-wielding entities to which they make appointments act like one big happy family, chock full of familial and legacy relations and cross-appointments. And, up until now, tacit agreement reigned among the bunch that, despite his observed popularity among the parish’s public, Republican candidate for governor Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry would receive the silent treatment.

Landry got on the bad side particularly of the Police Jury when his office persisted in ensuring enforcement of statute against dual officeholding pertaining to the Cypress Black Bayou Recreation and Water Conservation District’s Executive Director Robert Berry. In 2013, the Police Jury appointed him as their representative to its governing board, yet months later he became its executive director simultaneously. Despite this, jurors reappointed him in 2018.

Then, in 2020 after extensive warnings, Landry filed suit along with Marvin, but it soon became clear that Marvin wouldn’t aggressively pursue the case if it ended up going against Berry and washed his hands of it when the initial court ruling – made by now-Bossier City Attorney Charles Jacobs, then an elected district judge – somehow declared Berry in the clear. Landry kept the pressure on, eventually appealing his way to the state Supreme Court that finally put matters to rights by ruling Berry would have to give up one post or the other.

Besides putting their political ally Berry into difficulty, that outcome proved embarrassing to jurors. Most had voted to reappoint Berry despite the law, and all at least collectively had voiced support of Berry retaining both posts. Their knowing failure to uphold the law thus created a talking point that can be used against them in upcoming Jury elections this fall, and if not for Landry’s dogged pursuit of justice they could have finessed away the issue.

It could be worse for them. The five jurors at present serving on the parish’s Library Board of Control do so illegally, as Landry’s office has pointed out. However, whether out of distractions brought on by running for governor or political sensibilities in an election year or both, he hasn’t pursued that and it’s uncertain whether his successor will. One of his political allies, Republican current Solicitor General Liz Murrill, is angling to replace him, and during a recent interview on the Bossier Watch narrowcast the subject didn’t come up.

Until now, all of this has made Landry unmentionable with the Benton cabal. Its members with antipathy towards Landry have had the good political sense not to endorse publicly any gubernatorial candidate, including the Republicans that predominate parish elected offices even though the state party has endorsed him.

Then Whittington broke ranks. He gave about as full-throated a recommendation as one politician could give another with an emphasis on law enforcement: “Jeff Landry is the right man at the right time …. [H]e has firsthand experience and knowledge to deal with our out-of-control crime problem on his first day in office…. I personally endorse him, and I am 100 percent certain he will make a great Governor for Bossier and all of Louisiana.”

He wasn’t the only law enforcement official to do so, as a few other sheriffs and some district attorneys also gave Landry their imprimatur, with the campaign promising more to come. Absent to date has been Marvin’s blessing for any gubernatorial candidate – but he has intervened, in a big way, in the fight for Landry’s successor.

There, not only did the ostensibly law-and-order Republican endorse his next-door (so to speak) neighbor Lincoln and Union Parish District Attorney no party John Belton, but he ponied up some campaign cash for him. Only to see it all go down the drain when, just a day after Landry announced the endorsements, Belton pulled out of his contest.

So now Marvin will have to find another way to indulge in his pique at Landry involving Landry’s ally Murrill, perhaps by backing GOP state Rep. John Stefanski who looks to be her strongest challenger. Rumor had it that other Bossier political elites allied with the courthouse mob also had backed quietly Belton’s campaign, so they as well will have to turn elsewhere.

The most likely electoral outcome at this point has Landry and Murrill as winners. That would make, so far, Whittington the biggest area winner and Marvin the biggest loser. And a result that won’t exactly make the next governor and attorney general all that willing to do Bossier Parish government a lot of favors, whose officials will try to mitigate that fallout by supporting allied legislative candidates who will participate in their get-along-go-along good-old-boy style of governance.