Anxious Democrats spin hold as fortune reversal

Maybe it’s a sign of insecurity or an attempt to feel good after innumerable recent beatdowns, but the hold by Democrats of House District 60 in its recent election is much ado about nothing.

This weekend, Democrat Iberville Parish Councilor Chasity Martinez won comfortably over Republican Brad Daigle, who serves on the Greater Baton Rouge Port Commission. This set off some cries of jubilation on the left, both in and out of state, as GOP Pres. Donald Trump had won the district, about two-thirds in Iberville and the remainder in Assumption Parishes, by double-digits in 2024.

But don’t buy that this has any import regarding partisan political fortunes beyond that district. There’s a reason that the district never has elected a Republican, beginning with it is just about the last bastion in the state outside of New Orleans with significant white voter support for Democrats. By way of example, for the Iberville Parish Council only a single Republican was elected along with Martinez in 2023 where she defeated a long-time Democrat incumbent, in a parish almost evenly divided between black and white voters and where Trump’s ticket gained a bare majority a year later.

Recapturing UNO unlikely to boost enrollment much

The Louisiana State University System, and chiefly the flagship campus in Baton Rouge, is having its revenge on the University of New Orleans, echoing more than a dozen years ago when UNO left and the Shreveport campus might have been snatched away.

Last year, the Louisiana Legislature passed a bill passing UNO back to the LSU System. UNO has had financial difficulties (although some of its own making that was entirely avoidable) since the hurricane disasters of 2005 that caused an enrollment plunge. The switch out came as UNO had chafed under the dominance that LSU has within the system since the 1958 establishment of LSUNO, which didn’t throw off the shackles of being considered a property of LSU (for its first years, it was considered an extension of LSU) until its name change about 15 years later.

Now, it’s back to the future. Starting next academic year, not only are the school’s silver and blue colors for decades the being junked to adopt LSU’s purple and gold, but the name is reverting back to LSUNO. This follows the same strategy as when the system underwent governance changes at the same time UNO left, in response to a move in the Legislature to merge LSUS and Louisiana Tech.

NE LA sees last-minute U.S. House, PSC changes

Although somewhat less wacky than the eruptions rocking Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District contest, northeast Louisianans also saw some changes wash over the state’s District 5 Public Service Commission race as qualifying occurs this week for both.

For the House of Representatives, Republican state Sen. Blake Miguez’s shuffle out of the U.S. Senate field, essentially leaving a three-way battle among GOP incumbent Bill Cassidy, the current CD 5 Republican Rep. Julia Letlow, and GOP state Treas. John Fleming where any two of these three could make the nomination runoff and the winner therefore winning the office later this fall, shook up a passel of candidates who sprung out of the woodwork after Letlow with little warning entered the Senate race, propelled by an endorsement from Republican Pres. Donald Trump. Then immediately after Miguez said he had switched, Trump endorsed him.

With the millions of dollars already committed to his previous federal contest that he can transfer and the imprimatur of Trump, Miguez becomes the favorite to succeed Letlow, despite the fact that he doesn’t live near the district (no district residency requirement is imposed constitutionally, only state residency). The move doesn’t look accidental, and possibly it was triggered by Trump-aligned backers who didn’t want to see Miguez’s momentum they had helped build go to waste. With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to give the state a fourth district map in five elections, Miguez if elected would be able to have a new map and/or undertake a change in address putting him in the district to defend it in 2028.