Johnson promotion may affect LA map controversy

While much of the obvious has been covered in how the ascension of Republican Speaker Mike Johnson to that post will affect Louisiana politics, one under-the-radar aspect is how it can strengthen the state’s hand in the current legal tussle over congressional reapportionment.

Last year, Louisiana, which has a black voting age population of just under a third, enacted a plan that created one majority-minority district out of six. Special interests sued, claiming that the Voting Rights Act, despite its explicit statement that population proportions didn’t have to be translated into proportions of districts, required the state to have two M/M districts.

In a related Alabama case, the U.S. Supreme Court elevated racial proportion to a preferred status among reapportionment criteria, which include such things incumbent protection, continuity of representation, and keeping communities of interest together. Using that as a precedent, an Eastern District of Louisiana judge firstly threw out the enacted maps and secondly ordered new ones be drawn.

BC Council changes portend same for Bossier Jury?

With most through to another four years of office, in their latest meeting Bossier Parish police jurors reverted to their typical arrogance and obtuseness. Perhaps they should pay attention to the shape of their future: what happened at the last Bossier City Council meeting.

Recent election results guaranteed nine jurors would return to office. The one runoff that remains will send a new member to the Jury since District 10 four-decade veteran Jerome Darby retired, but vying as his replacement leading into the runoff is his brother Democrat Julius Darby. Republican challenger Keith Sutton defeated incumbent Republican Mac Plummer in District 12, while the GOP’s Pam Glorioso beat incumbent Democrat Charles Gray in District 9.

But over the past two years, all jurors had engaged in questionable, if not illegal, acts. They hired, knowing full well it was against the law, Butch Ford as parish administrator, because he was not a registered voter in Bossier Parish. He would not become one until ten months into his tenure, but even now some dispute remains over whether that residence qualifies for that purpose. They also filled completely the parish’s Library Board of Control with themselves, a move which is of uncertain legal status and unprecedented across the state.

GOP must stop Edwards rail boondoggle power play

Perhaps it’s merely a reflection of a fantasy, or more seriously a last-gasp effort to stamp an agenda about to be washed entirely out to sea, but playing like tomorrow doesn’t exist Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards announced high-speed passenger rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans would commence sometime in 2027.

Edwards said the state had agreed with Amtrak to start this up with a once-daily roundtrip between the two cities. By then, presumably an extensive upgrading of 80 miles of tracks will have been completed, supposedly costing $250 million. The state would have to put up $50 million for the upgrades.

Actually, it doesn’t have to come up with just under $20.5 million of that amount. Not long after the 2023 Regular Session of the Legislature closed after allocating that amount of money to pay off the federal government to zero out the 2005-era hurricane disaster Road Home program, the federal government said the state could keep the money if it used it for disaster preparation. Eschewing any alternative use, and to the displeasure of some Republican legislators on the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget who had to approve reprogramming the money who pointed out more cost-effective uses, the Edwards Administration steered that towards the state match for high-speed intercity passenger rail. The JLCB approved only because Edwards negotiated the whole deal beforehand and then presented it as an accomplished fate that if not approved would scuttle the swap.

Johnson ascension quick, remarkable rise to top

Within the past two weeks, Louisiana conservatives have hit the jackpot. First, Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry won the governorship impressively without a runoff. Days later, GOP state Sen. Cameron Henry, in a career marked largely with fiscal conservatism, laid claim to the state Senate presidency starting next term. Now, Republican Rep. Mike Johnson, from Louisiana’s Congressional District 4, has become Speaker of the House of Representatives.

It took congressional Republicans three weeks to sort it out, but finally they settled unanimously on Johnson to take up the gavel after three other alternatives fell a few votes short in a chamber where the GOP has but a narrow edge. It all began when a handful of fiscal conservatives, using a procedure inserted by former Republican speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy as a condition of his retaining the job at the year’s beginning, to vacate his position because he didn’t live up to one of his pledges to vote on appropriations bills separately.

Let’s match some questions to answers about Johnson’s rise to prominence, becoming the first Louisianan ever to hold the top spot in a chamber of Congress:

Turnout may cost Democrats winnable Caddo race

Unless Democrats find a way to rally their voters, they will let slip away the sheriff’s post in Caddo Parish.

Earlier this month, the sheriff’s race there sent white Republican lawyer and former Shreveport city councilor John Nickelson and black Democrat former Shreveport chief administrative officer and police chief Henry Whithorn into a runoff. Nickelson, who has the endorsement of outgoing GOP Sheriff Steve Prator, received 45 percent of the vote while Whitehorn, who worked for Democrat former Mayor Adrian Perkins who decisively lost a reelection bid last year, pulled in 35 percent. Two other Republicans took in 11 percent while two other Democrats, one black, racked up 9 percent.

That GOP candidates collected 56 percent should raise some eyebrows. Whites are just shy of a majority of registrants, with blacks barely behind and the remaining other race voters at about five percent. Conventional wisdom would be that while few blacks would vote for a Republican, the proportion of liberal whites would at least double that chunk and would vote for a Democrat, giving Whitehorn the edge.

Routed Democrats may suffer more shock losses

The Republican rout in state elections this month may presage even more momentum in that direction for next month’s runoff elections, perhaps at the state but especially at the local level.

Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry was expected to triumph in November, but instead got the job done in October. Republicans already had taken without opposition Insurance Commissioner with Tim Temple and Agriculture Commissioner with Mike Strain, and GOP Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser as expected won outright as well. Nearly winning outright were for Attorney General Republican Solicitor General Liz Murrill and for Treasurer the GOP’s John Fleming, a former congressman and White House official. Republican First Assistant Secretary of State Nancy Landry narrowly took the most votes for that office, but given the distribution of votes all three should win handily in November over lackluster Democrats. Almost certainly Republicans will hold all statewide offices.

Most of the eight Board of Elementary and Secondary Education also were decided, with Republicans state Rep. Paul Hollis easily cruising in District 1 and state Rep. Lance Harris in District 5, joining incumbent Republican Ronnie Morris in District 6 who also won handily, along with District 3’s GOP incumbent Sandy Holloway who didn’t face opposition. Democrat incumbent Preston Castille did turn away a challenger, and new member Democrat Sharon Latten Clark who faced no opposition in District 2.

Johnson may yet bring House speakership to LA

Louisiana will have another bite at the apple when Republican Rep. Mike Johnson receives consideration for the U.S. House of Representative speakership this week.

Upon the deposing of former Speaker Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy earlier this month, the House GOP first gave consideration to GOP Rep. Steve Scalise. But several holdouts within the Republican Conference made it clear to him that he could not gain the narrow margin necessary to win, and he withdrew his name with plans to remain as Majority Leader – currently with Hale Boggs the only Louisianans to serve in that role since it became institutionalized at the start of the 20^th century.

With Scalise ruling himself out, the Conference then tried to settle on GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, Judiciary Committee chairman. Another small but different coterie of Republicans objected to his candidacy – Scalise rejected for not being conservative enough in being part of a leadership team having to compromise from time to time (American Conservative Union rating of 84 in the 117^th Congress, 91 lifetime, where 100 means voting for the conservative preference every time), Jordan losing out because some thought him too conservative (ACU rating of 100 last Congress and lifetime). At that, the Conference decided to throw the process open to multiple candidates simultaneously, which later this week may resolve the issue.

Landry pushes Henry into LA Senate leadership

Grass definitely isn’t growing under the feet of Louisiana’s governor-elect, Republican Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry as the nightmare extends for the state’s political left.

Thursday, recently reelected GOP state Sen. Cameron Henry announced senators of the 2024-28 term — all but two already known after last weekend’s elections — had settled on him to helm the Senate. Jockeying had been going on before the election between him and Republican Mike Reese, like him finishing his first term, for the president’s post.

The decision came so quickly not only because almost all seats had been filled but also given who won a number of seats. Several intraparty matchups candidates featured limited government conservatives serving presently in the House who consistently voted that way, against other Republicans who at critical junctures defected from that worldview or other get-along-go-along social conservatives recruited from outside state government, with the more conservative triumphing in every case. They had worked with Henry, one of the stauncher fiscal conservatives in his career, in the past when he spent the 2016-20 term there as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and are ideologically compatible with him.

Winners, losers already there in LA elections

It’s not too early to declare some winners and losers in Louisiana’s state elections this cycle, primarily because so many contests already have been decided or wrote on the wall what will come in next month’s runoff elections.

WINNER: Jeff Landry. The Republican attorney general wiped out all opposition in the gubernatorial race, in the most impressive display of the 1974 Constitution era. He became the first first-time candidate ever to win without a runoff and joining only Democrat Edwin Edwards (1983), Republican Mike Foster (1999), and Republican Bobby Jindal (2007 and 2011) in pulling off the feat of a general election triumph. That he did so bodes well for his powers of persuasion in herding the Legislature, which almost certainly will deliver supermajorities for his party, towards delivering on an agenda that looks to be the most transformative in a century.

WINNER: Billy Nungesser. The chattering class (see Loser below) thought he could give Landry a run for his money and were somewhat surprised when the Republican passed on that race to win reelection as lieutenant governor. Perhaps he knew something that other like GOP Treas. John Schroder and GOP state Sen. Sharon Hewitt didn’t, that Landry would win. His big win keeps him in office while others retire or hope to bag jobs in the Landry Administration.

Organization key to Bossier winners, losers

With all but one contest at the state and local levels resolved, elections this cycle in Bossier Parish demonstrated that to come close to beating its political establishment, you had to have a pretty organized effort behind you.

At stake were all the seats on the Police Jury as well as two state Senate and two state House of Representative slots, with a couple of House posts already decided when House District 10 incumbent Republican Wayne McMahen and House District 5 newcomer Republican Dennis Bamburg didn’t draw opponents, as well as a few juror positions with just incumbents filing. Among the others, in all but one Jury and one House seat establishment forces had a rooting interest in, if not intense involvement supporting, a particular candidate.

The House race it didn’t particularly care about was the District 2 matchup between Caddo Parish Democrats Terence Vinson from the School Board and Steven Jackson from the Parish Commission. It offered a contrast in styles both in terms of candidates and campaigns: Vinson utilizing traditional canvassing methods and with a steady record in office, while Jackson spent more overall and more on media to go with his more controversial personality, most recently being convicted for impersonation of a police officer. That apparently didn’t faze enough voters, who gave him a narrow win.