Conservatism to see few gains in LA fall votes

In essence, Louisiana’s Senate, one Board of Elementary and Secondary Education spot, and two Public Service Commission posts have been settled, resulting with arguably little in the way of conservative advancement.

That’s not because Republicans won’t triumph in all of these contests come November. That basically was set in stone upon qualifying, with first the party primaries of May 16 and then the ensuing runoffs Jun. 27 setting the exact field. Who gained the respective nominations mattered to determine the advancement of conservatism.

For the Senate, Rep. Julia Letlow’s win over GOP Treas. John Fleming hardly will cause an ideological ripple, if actually regress slightly from conservatism. Her lifetime voting record is actually slightly more moderate than that of who she and Fleming vanquished in the primary and who she replaces, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, although both are to the political right roughly equidistant between centrism and perfect conservatism. Fleming’s record in Congress, by contrast, was much further to the right.

Despite lower turnout, Letlow forges victory

The tumultuous U.S. Senate Republican runoff between Treas. John Fleming and Rep. Julia Letlow ended not much differently than where it had started from the primary election.

After that, it looked as if Letlow could cruise to victory. Leading Fleming in percent of the vote 45-28, that left her with a sizeable advantage not needing to pick up much relative support to notch a runoff win. But a few factors should have raised alarms in her camp.

First, there would be a chunk of voters who showed up simply to boot incumbent Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy. A half-baked flipflop on the question of convicting (then former) GOP Pres. Donald Trump as well as subsequent votes backing a big-spending Democrat agenda soured especially conservative voters on him, who would make up disproportionately the party primary electorate. Further, they disproportionately likely voted for Letlow because she was seen as the more moderate of the two, but they had no real commitment to her and with a good portion of the state having nothing but the runoff on the ballot, many of these voters would disappear from the polls, giving Fleming an advantage.

Landry vetoes urge NO to get, keep it together

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry wouldn’t be much of a chief executive by Louisiana’s past standards if he wasn’t using his line-item veto clout. But this year his aim seems different.

In his first two years, Landry employed this technique of vetoing line items animated by a particular purpose. In 2024, he lopped off items that he didn’t see having a statewide purpose that went to nongovernmental organizations, and from there developed criteria by which such requests would pass his muster. In 2025, he used his pen more punitively as retribution against legislators, even of his own party, who opposed some signature pieces of his legislative agenda.

For 2026, the overall theme seemed to be to get Orleans Parish affairs in order. The regular capital outlay bill for 2024 apportioned for projects exclusively in New Orleans some $341 million (keep in mind this doesn’t have to be spent in that year or could include projects from previous years not complete, and this amount includes roads, ports, and recreation money but not for state buildings, and also accounts for NGOs and subgovernments exclusively within the parish), and its 2025 counterpart laid out $514 million (the jump mainly due to a huge appropriation to the Port of New Orleans, counted although technically in St. Bernard, as well as the airport, technically in Jefferson, counted in all years). In 2024, all three Landry line item excisions hit Orleans, for almost $2 million, and in 2025 none of those three affected Orleans.

Left fighting rearguard action against pay raises

The struggle never ends against Louisiana’s political left’s quest to expand government, as the battle over a one-time shift in education spending demonstrates.

This week, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry notched a victory towards the state providing yet another stipend for educators and support staff in public schools. It all started in 2023 when the state, rather than baking in a permanent pay hike of $2,000 for those with a teaching license and $1,000 for all other employed full-time by a local education association to the Minimum Foundation Program, instead didn’t pass a formula for the MFP but did make a one-time appropriation for stipends. The process repeated the next two years, even as last year voters turned down constitutional amendments taking money from overstuffed trust funds that would pay down unfunded accrued liabilities that could shift money to LEAs to provide these raises, and did so again this year to a similar measure.

The two rejections came from the left mobilizing voters against those items, because in essence these would devolve power away from the state in ongoing education expenses, placing more in the hands of local governments which the left sees as less reliably able to spend more money and grow government because local officials and taxpayers are more likely to hold the line on spending in many places, whereas having the money as part of the MFP put spending increases across the state on autopilot. With this electorate veto power for the moment and Landry and GOP supermajorities in the Legislature wishing to fund raises but not from the MFP that provided for less local control, Landry hit on a plan through an executive order to perform an intercessional redirection for this budget year only to provide for the hikes.

Change execution method to save public's lives

A recent series of legal rulings has left Louisiana with the need to tweak its law that ultimately saves lives.

Rulings made concerning an Alabama law that permits hypoxia as a method of carrying out capital punishment, coupled with a U.S. Supreme Court declination to review them, said that particular method of execution is unconstitutional. This would rest on Eighth Amendment grounds as cruel and unusual punishment, as in the several instances where such a method has been used, including in Louisiana where the method was added into law in 2024 and carried out last year, the inmates appeared to struggle during the process.

This represents a temporary victory for capital punishment opponents, whose strategy in the face of the constitutionality of the general concept of the death penalty is to try to declare every specific method as unconstitutional. They do this despite the fact that social science research indicates that capital punishment when consistently applied saves innocent lives – or perhaps in spite of it for ideological reasons because they know if they can disrupt the consistency then the practice becomes ineffective and then they can use that to try to attack the conceptual constitutionality argument.

Kennedy presidential prospects hampered by age

It’s an interesting proposition, but if Republican Sen. John Kennedy does run for the presidency, that might be a bridge too far because of something illegal in employment law, but not when ratified by voters.

At a recent speech, Kennedy averred that he might eschew reelection, which he could garner without difficulty, and instead take a stab at the presidency. He said that donors were encouraging him.

 

Kennedy has solid conservative credentials in his time in the Senate but, perhaps more importantly from a national political perspective, has gained a reputation as an effective and witty communicator of those ideas. In fact, an online search will turn up, both in text and by video, sites that proclaim Kennedy’s “greatest hits” in terms of witticisms. As well, Kennedy also has built a reputation as a bulldog in interviewing nominees and testifiers of both parties, calling things as he sees them.

Funds shift should trigger new MFP strategy

Necessity is the mother of invention, and perhaps Republican Gov. Jeff Landry hit on some needed reform of education expenditures.

After two attempts fell short to amend the Constitution in two consecutive spring votes that would have rejiggered state finances to shuttle money to school districts to provide educator and staff raises, Landry proposed a plan to reshuffle the state’s Minimum Foundation Program for this year to take money from operational and other non-instructional expenses and send it to salaries. This would require an intercession vote remotely by two-thirds of legislators in each chamber.

 

Problematically, some state school boards have raised alarms about the plan. In essence, they would be required to beggar spending on non-instructional expenses that could delay projects and support services or leave a district short in case of an emergency such as rebuilding after a disaster. Alternatively, they could dip into reserves for this one-time expense (policy-makers have convened a task force to reform educational spending that they hope provides a permanent increase in future years).

Govts should vet outdated, useless agencies

Maybe both Bossier City and Bossier Parish could use their portions of nearly a million dollars on something better than an outdated local government agency that acts like a bank with public dollars.

At its meeting earlier this month, the parish’s Police Jury reappointed three members to the Bossier Public Trust Financing Authority for four-year terms that would expire at the end of the month. The governing board has two other members whose terms end in a couple of years for the agency created in 1979 to issue mortgages for single-family housing, serviced through area financial institutions. Reappointments will have to be ratified by Bossier City prior to term ends.

In its early years it issued several such bond issues, but since then largely has fallen into disuse. Technically it is a component unit of Bossier City, but in reality it essentially operates as an adjunct of the Greater Bossier Economic Development Fund as its board members all are GBEDF directors and its agent Rocky Rockett is the GBEDF executive director. None receive compensation, although the Authority pays out administration fees and professional fees presumably for its simplified audit annually for the state’s legislative auditor.

LA already seeing benefits from SNAP changes

Louisiana, both gratifyingly and embarrassingly, leads almost every state in reduction of people in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is a good thing

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of last year made the most far-reaching changes to public assistance programs in three decades, among them to SNAP. Specifically, states would be penalized starting in fiscal year 2028 for an excessive inappropriate payment rate, reductions in eligibility requirement waivers for regions with higher unemployment rates, allowing fewer legally-residing foreign nationals to access it, and, in 2027, institution of a lenient community engagement requirement for working-age able-bodied adults without dependents.

Especially with the error-rate requirement using data that began using data from last year, states have become more vigilant in determining eligibility. As a result, rolls have declined steadily since the bill’s passage about a year ago. They’re about nine percent lower, or 4.3 million recipients, through February of this year (which should increase further as several states had waivers on standards into April).

Deal controversy to discourage Monroe investors

Double standards and good-old-boy politics aren’t going to serve Monroe well as it tries to take advantage of a generational economic development opportunity.

As the Hyperion data center project continues its buildout, which has given the area economy but particularly Monroe’s a big shot in the arm, bickering continues over a potentially-dubious use of taxpayer dollars. In the crosshairs is a $4.5 million deal by the Interstate 20 Economic Development District, giving the sum to an entity DZE LLC to build residential homes outside of the EDD. Its board, whose members mostly comprise City Council selections that at this time is controlled by black Democrats, bypassed normal procedures to award the money.

The city technically has jurisdiction over the District’s fiscal matters and has refused to release the portion of the money already billed. Initially it argued that it had uncertainty over whether statutorily it could do so, since the project had no real connection to the district. Mainly comprising Pecanland Mall, tax revenue gained through projects theoretically would fund district activities, so it is very difficult to see how infrastructure pertaining to houses outside of the district constitutes economic development within it. Other than the Board, does anyone seriously think new houses across the way will encourage more people to locate near to and want to take the low-wage jobs at the mall?