It’s a bold bid, but one if even moderately successful could drag Louisiana governance (probably kicking and screaming) into the 21st century.
The Louisiana Freedom Caucus PAC, the campaign arm of a collection of Republican House of Representatives members plus supporters, last week released a list of endorsees for upcoming legislative elections. This entitles them to campaign assistance.
Endorsees are judged to adhere to conservative principles and include both current legislators and hopefuls in joining them. Regarding this decision for existing legislators, one criterion stood out: only the 19 representatives who voted against breaking the constitutional spending caps in this past regular legislative session were eligible for endorsement. No senators did.
Thus, among the senatorial endorsements, the only sitting legislators comprised House members running for the Senate. In one instance that meant tabbing a newcomer over an incumbent, and in another a legislative neophyte received the nod over a current House member. Besides four other representatives receiving this backing, a political rookie also won endorsement over the son of the incumbent state senator.
On the House side, 13 incumbents snagged the endorsement, although in four other cases incumbents were passed over for challengers, with another 13 going to contenders for open seats. As with Senate candidates, in almost every case an endorsee was chosen over at least one other Republican running.
LAFCPAC hopes to influence legislative affairs to create more conservative policy-making. Although Republicans held supermajorities in both legislative chambers this term, often bills similar to those in several other states that passed with ease there couldn’t make it all the way in Louisiana because of key committee, floor, and veto session defections by a handful of Republicans, so the group hopes to put in place legislators less likely to go weak at the knees on these issues.
Nor did chamber leaders sufficiently back conservative causes. GOP Speaker Clay Schexnayder, now running for Secretary of State, assumed that role with well less than half of his party’s votes, instead relying mostly on Democrats unified behind him. This led him and his team to slow-walk or actively try to obstruct a number of conservative measures eagerly embraced by the party’s legislative leaders in many other states.
For some of these races, LAFCPAC likely will have little influence. House District 7 Republican state Rep. Larry Bagley at the end of last year had over $150,000 banked to run for a final term, while GOP challenger and LAFCPAC-endorsed Tim Pruitt has yet to report any fundraising at all, although he has started to campaign. It will be a tough road to hoe for him.
But in other instances, this endorsement could be crucial, especially as a signal to voters searching for reliably conservative candidates in fields without an incumbent but with multiple members of the GOP running. And where the group has endorsed a challenger, it creates a tool by which to hold more accountable any incumbent who survives, as well as alerting for the future that straying too much from voting by conservative principles could bring a challenger.
The real measure of the group’s clout will come by assessing how many of its endorsees win open seats. From political unknowns to GOP state Rep. Alan Seabaugh, the group’s chairman who is locked in a competitive race for an open Senate seat, a number of wins by endorsees will ensure its relevance and increase the sway it has over policy-making.
Groups like this don’t often have lasting staying power. Already, one that isn’t much older than the Caucus of which the Caucus essentially exists as a subset of it, the Louisiana Conservative Caucus, largely fizzled this spring in its attempts to sway Schexnayder, and it doesn’t have an allied campaign apparatus designed to bolster the number of conservative lawmakers. If the Freedom Caucus can have a sufficient number of its endorsees win, it can last and in a way that pushes Louisiana towards following other states currently sprinting away from it in economic development and advancement of individual liberties.
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