SE LA Republicans must choose wisely in primaries

In the District 1 Public Service Commission race, Republicans would seem to have a surer thing with the qualification of Republican state Rep. Mark Wright into the contest. But they also have to be careful about a Louisiana Supreme Court contest around the same area.

Wright dove into the opportunity of succeeding GOP Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta yesterday, joining fellow Republican state Rep. Stephanie Hilferty. Her announcement raised some eyebrows among conservative voters and especially climate realists because of her record as perhaps the least conservative member of her party in the chamber, according to her average score over the past six years on the Louisiana Legislature Log scorecard, particularly in the last three years, although her recent votes on issues that intersect with the PSC’s authority showed affinity with a climate realism agenda.

Wright’s consistent conservativism according to the scorecard raises no such doubts. Over the past six years, he averaged almost 88 on the scorecard (higher scores denote greater conservative/reform impulses), in line with the GOP chamber average and, unlike Hilferty who scored at just above 50 in the past two sessions, Wright averaged 100 over that span.

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.