Risky for LA GOP to endorse for 2026 Senate

Louisiana state Republicans need to acclimate themselves to the new reality of partially closed primaries by making endorsements prior to the primary election rare.

Party leaders have begun an internal debate over whether to follow the strategy of endorsement before the initial election of the 2023 governor’s race as applied 2026 U.S. Senate campaign. It has at this time only two declared candidates, Republican incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy and GOP state Treas. John Fleming, but Fleming has asked the state party – whether through the state central committee that meets quarterly or by an interim decision by its much smaller executive committee – to endorse him along the lines of what the executive committee did almost a year prior to the 2023 race by tabbing Republican Gov. Jeff Landry.

The rest is history – other GOP candidates entered, but Landry waxed the field, raising record amounts of cash. This certainly avoided the disastrous repeat of 2015 when two other quality Republicans joined in against the favorite Republican former Sen. David Vitter; while they didn’t prevent him from making the blanket primary runoff, they did fray him around the edges and one, Jay Dardenne, threw his support to eventual winner Democrat former Gov. John Bel Edwards and was rewarded with the second-ranked job in the executive branch. Neither did the party endorse businessman Eddie Rispone nor former Rep. Ralph Abraham in 2019 and another intermural tussle ensued, with Rispone going through to lose narrowly to Edwards.

Media not taking well Landry's devaluing them

Poor Tyler Bridges, he’s not one of the cool kids anymore and he doesn’t like it. Assuredly, he’s not the only one in Louisiana’s legacy print media.

Bridges, a longtime reporter now working for The Advocate newspaper chain, recently gave readers an idea of how upset he was with Republican Gov. Jeff Landry. For anybody who reads his stuff, if not generally his outlet, or any of (what’s left of) the Gannett outlets in the state, or the only major daily outside of these two combines the Lake Charles American Press, it becomes clear they aren’t fans of the governor.

That their ideological leanings differ from his was something Landry recognized long ago, and as have many conservative politicians around the country he built campaigns and governance around direct communication with people rather than try to cajole a hostile intermediary into saying nice things about him. Indeed, part of this strategy has been to marginalize that conduit of indirect communication.

BC reform train appears primed to leave station

Bossier City takes the spotlight as the only major Louisiana city to have elections this spring – placing in full view a likely drastic reordering of political power.

When the dust settled from qualifying for the Mar. 29 elections, reformers – those who want to keep a lid on city spending especially on low-priority and grandiose projects, exit it from sweetheart deals, and bring greater transparency to governance – appear likely to nab at least a majority on the City Council, if not much more, as well as retain the mayor’s slot with Republican Tommy Chandler.

Chandler was largely ineffective as mayor after ousting long-time and insider mayor Lo Walker, doing little to advance a reform agenda. Debatable is whether this occurred because of his lack of political skills or because he faced on almost every issue five opposing votes that would make at best for a string of symbolic vetoes. But he supported the strict term limits movement to the hilt and with a friendly council he would join them, regardless of his skills, in the cause of reform.

Court reminder halts Monroe Council obstinacy

Don’t be fooled: the Monroe City Council majority Democrats folded on obstructing results of last year’s tax vote because they had received a reminder they had a legal obligation to certify the tax’s passage.

At the Council’s last meeting, it finally approved the one percent sales tax renewed at voters’ behest. Originally set several months ago, after subsequently joining the Council Democrats Rodney McFarland and Verbon Muhammad with retuning Democrat Juanita Woods tried unsuccessfully to rescind the authorization. Then, also without unsuccessful, they beseeched voters not to vote for it, claiming it would be a “slush fund” – translated, meaning they wanted it defeated so they could pass a version in a form steering more money to southside Monroe.

Denied in this, at the Jan. 14 meeting they tried the last, most desperate tactic: refuse governing authority promulgation. State law mandates that before forwarding a tax vote to the Secretary of State for final disposition, but without comment the Democrats voted it down.

Most BC graybeards throw in governance towel

Term limits in any form have yet to be approved by Bossier City voters this spring, but the sunshine the issue attracted onto city governance already has them working as intended – if, unfortunately, tardily.

At this time in the 2021 election cycle, city government had a mayor vying for a fifth term, a councilor wanting a third term, three councilors shooting for sixth terms, one gunning for a seventh, and still another asking for an eighth. When the dust settles after these elections, at most only one of these seven will remain in office.

The last election cycle produced some tremors when Republican Tommy Chandler ended the GOP’s Lo Walker’s run as mayor, Republican Shane Cheatham decisively defeated the GOP’s District 1 Councilor Scott Irwin, and Republican Chris Smith knocked out of at-large office GOP Councilor Tim Larkin. This cycle is on the verge of registering an earthquake with graybeards Republicans David Montgomery and Jeff Free with Democrat Bubba Williams all passing on tries for seventh, fourth, and eighth terms, respectively.