Conservatives hope for best with Hilferty PSC run

Heading into qualifying for fall elections, Louisiana conservatives and climate realists might be staring at a low-value trade.

At present, the Public Service Commission has a 3-2 Republican majority, which roughly mirrors the division between realists and climate alarmists on the panel that regulates, among other things, utilities that provide power. Democrat Davante Lewis is nothing more than a windup, around-the-bend alarmist, while Democrat Foster Campbell has shown some sympathy for alarmist views but has stopped short of full-on promulgation of alarmism in his voting behavior.

Campbell is term-limited, and his replacement almost certainly will be Republican Caddo Parish Commissioner John Atkins who expresses realist views, so that would bring a PSC less likely to commit mistakes in the name of alarmism. Unfortunately, one of the premier exponents of realism on the PSC for the past dozen years, Republican Eric Skrmetta, also is term-limited, and the frontrunner to replace him is more uncertain in adhering to realism.

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.

Trump CD 5 Miguez endorsement prompts questions

Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s endorsement of GOP state Sen. Blake Miguez to succeed Republican Rep. Julia Letlow in Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District leaves more questions than the one answered with it.

That one being, Miguez now should be rated the favorite to win. A huge war chest he transferred from his attempted Senate campaign when he shucked that upon the entrance of Letlow into that contest – after her receiving explicit encouragement from Trump – certainly put him up there as a big contender, but questions lingered because Miguez is domiciled (close to New Iberia) nowhere near the district. He had no particular history in the district save attending Louisiana State University and his legislative service of the past several years, so it was uncertain how district voters might receive that, especially those in its northern reaches some 300 miles from where he lives. As well, having abandoned the Senate contest and shifting gears so suddenly might make him look too opportunistic, if not desperate, to secure a seat in Washington, D.C. that may not play well with voters.

Trump’s unexpected endorsement changes those dynamics well into his favor. Given the president’s popularity in the district, which goes from moderately high in its southern portion to extremely high in its north, that does carry a lot of weight and if advertised – and it will be with all the resources Miguez can draw to bear – can override concerns about his alien presence in the district. Opponents can raise that argument, but if Trump says it’s all right regardless, that’s  going to good enough for a lot of Republicans – and that’s all that’s needed, since the winner of the GOP primary will win the general election.

Not so crazy Miguez entry hikes CD 5 craziness

The craziness of Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District got taken up a notch when Republican state Sen. Blake Miguez bailed on the state’s Senate contest to toss his hat – a considerable distance since his domicile is well out of the district – into the ring of this race, an idea which actually isn’t so crazy.

The base craziness now elevated comes from the district itself being on life support, assuredly dismembered in large part for 2028 elections after the U.S. Supreme Court (in a delayed, Solomonic response to not upset too abruptly maps from many states prior to this year’s tilts) will decide the current state map is unconstitutional. The inevitability opened the floodgates for candidates wanting to get in on the ground floor for a congressional career after its incumbent GOP Rep. Julia Letlow made a surprise bid for the Senate, and apparently, among others, chased Miguez from that race.

Because of the bizarre shape of the district that starts in the Florida parishes, heads west to part of Baton Rouge, then swings north up the Mississippi River to clip Alexandria and concludes by grabbing a piece of Monroe on the way to the Arkansas line, a wide range of candidates have expressed they will and seem poised to run. As Scott McKay observes, some candidates involved have tenuous connections to the district, which constitutionally is not a hindrance in qualifying for the contest, but does create chances for their opponents to highlight their candidacies as more disconnected to the district if not blatantly opportunistic.

Cassidy made desperate after Senate race shakeup

Just like that, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy now is odds-on to miss the party preference primary nomination for his office and may lead him to consider doing the previously unthinkable.

Which isn’t to drop out. Up to this week, Cassidy increasingly had buffeted storms in his quest for reelection later this year as GOP quality challenger after quality challenger entered the contest. Up until the middle of last month, the multiplicity of such challengers had put him in a position with his projected support so eroded that he would have to endure a runoff for the nod which he seemed likely to lose, but regardless was the most likely to survive to it.

Then Republican Rep. Julia Letlow made a surprising entrance into the race after GOP Pres. Donald Trump endorsed her out of the blue. That by itself began to threaten Cassidy’s place in the runoff, as Letlow would take more votes from him that the other more-conservative competitors, all the more particularly since Cassidy had made an enemy of Trump by voting to convict him of half-baked impeachment charges between Trump’s terms.

Costs, benefits calculus warrants CCS skepticism

What those promoting carbon capture and sequestration cannot either understand or admit to is, even if they can make claims about safety and economic development, that the overall cost to society of subsidizing their efforts exceeds benefits conveyed to society, justifying local populations in rejecting their entreaties.

Increasingly, Louisianans express alarm at the idea of sequestering carbon near or under their back yards. The latest flashpoint comes in Ascension Parish, where unusual bedfellows find themselves moving together to oppose a CCS project called River Parish Sequestration. It is a subsidiary of a firm called Blue Sky Infrastructure managed by Blackstone, a private investment firm comprised of hedge funds.

Part of the opposition comes from the usual leftist suspects who decry any industrial expansion as forfeiting “environmental justice.” But this anti-intellectual screed is joined by the growing conservative opposition in many parts of the state objecting to CCS over issues of safety and property rights, both real and pecuniary.

Constitutional convention bill meritorious

An audacious plan to redo Louisiana’s Constitution might just succeed within the next two years.

While widely agreed it should happen, constitutional convention implementation has foundered over recent years on charges it would be too rushed, too narrow or too broad, and too exclusive of citizens. Which is why HB 4 by Republican state Rep. Dixon McMakin should draw serious consideration.

The bill would establish a rolling convention, setting up subcommittees to review each of the overstuffed document’s 14 sections and an executive committee to oversee. Presumably, subcommittees, required to meet at least monthly, would do so over starting in early 2027 for the next nine months or so, followed by a decision on changes by all 93 delegates. The product would be available for voter approval at the 2027 general election. Any parts of the current Constitution not included in the end product would revert to statute.

Reveal what LA GATOR ESA opponents really mean

Understanding the rationale behind Louisiana’s foray into education savings accounts presents a good argument for program expansion, a view at loggerheads with some legislators who actually supported this plan at its inception.

Another battle seems brewing between education freedom advocates in Louisiana, backed at the top by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, and those policy-makers more cautious on the issue, represented by GOP Sen. Pres. Cameron Henry. The throwdown came with Landry boosting in his fiscal year 2027 budget spending on educational savings accounts by double, which would allow for more than only the few hundred families at present able to take advantage of these besides the thousands of low-income families carried over from the state’s previous voucher/scholarship program aimed at allowing children who did attend or who would have attended inferior schools a choice at a better education environment. He had tried something similar last year, but Henry led opposition in thwarting that.

At and after the budget presentation last week, Henry threw cold water on the requested increase of around $44 million. During the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget hearing, he opined that the program had too many other possible family uses attached to it besides moving children away from failing schools to private schools, and accused the Department of Education of bad faith in keeping him informed about these details. Afterwards, in an interview he went further, saying he would reconceptualize the whole program, limiting it to tuition costs needed to move children out of subpar schools.