November 10, 2010
As Republicans take further control of the political landscape, it’s fair to say Louisiana Democrats have seen better days. By Jeremy Alford
Few summed it up better than Roger Villere, chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party, who labeled last week’s election day a referendum on all things Democrat. Villere hit the Dems on practically every issue they slammed Republicans on two years ago. “Voters are not satisfied with their failed record on jobs, their ballooning of the national deficit, or their rapid increase in the size and scope of government control,” Villere says. “There is no one for the Democrats to blame but themselves.”
So. Where do things stand now? Well, there’s one U.S. senator, one congressman and one statewide elected official. That’s what Louisiana Democrats have going for themselves right now. And if you continue reading into it, the picture doesn’t get any better.
Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is now the only statewide Democratic official, due to last week’s victory by Lt. Gov.-elect Jay Dardenne, a Baton Rouge Republican. But Caldwell, a folksy type from the piney northern hamlet of Tullulah, is also the same Democrat who filed a lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama’s health care plan and joined forces as of late with Gov. Bobby Jindal. In other words, Caldwell isn’t exactly leading any Democratic pep rallies.
On Capitol Hill, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu becomes — even more so — the banner-bearer for Louisiana Democrats, even though it’s rumored she’s pondering skipping re-election. Finally, state Rep. Cedric Richmond’s win in the 2nd Congressional District over Republican incumbent Joseph Cao allows Democrats to maintain one seat out of seven in the state’s House delegation.
Joshua Stockley, political science professor at UL Monroe, says Cao’s 2008 election will likely be an asterisk in the saga of ex-Congressman Bill Jefferson, the Democrat whose federal corruption charges gifted Cao with a surprise win. Thus, Richmond reclaiming the Big Easy doesn’t exactly make Dems feel much better. “New Orleans really doesn’t count,” Stockley says. “New Orleans is supposed to go Democratic.”
What does count is the upcoming election for secretary of state, a post Dardenne will be vacating in the coming weeks as he ascends to No. 2. It’s the next opportunity Democrats will have to shore up support. Of course, that brings to mind Dardenne’s slain opponent, Caroline Fayard of New Orleans. Even though she lost to Dardenne in the lieutenant governor’s contest by 14 points, the Democratic newbie received 64,210 more votes than Congressman Charlie Melancon, a fellow Democrat from Napoleonville who shelled out a whopping $4 million on his bid for the U.S. Senate.
“I think Caroline Fayard has a bright future in Democratic politics, even in this very conservative state. She just has to show people she’s not the southern, just-as-liberal version of (speaker of the U.S. House) Nancy Pelosi,” Stockley says. “Democrats need a big win in Louisiana right now. They need to show they have some presence here. The secretary of state’s election should end up being very competitive.”
Fayard is 32, just fours years older than Ravi Sangisetty, the Houma attorney and Democratic nominee who lost the 3rd Congressional District to Republican Jeff Landry of New Iberia last week. Like Fayard, Sangisetty is expected to stick around for a while and possibly develop into an influencer.
More immediately, Louisiana’s elected Beltway brood will need to address its lack of seniority in the House. “We have an extremely young delegation,” says Pearson Cross, a political science professor at UL Lafayette. “But there will be six Republicans in the House, which bodes well in a GOP-controlled chamber.”
Rep. Charles Boustany of Lafayette, who faced only token opposition, is the frontrunner to benefit the most. Cross says that’s due to Boustany’s relationship with Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, who is expected to become speaker. “That in itself is a really big deal,” Cross says.
If last week’s balloting resulted in a weakened Democratic front, then it also served to build up U.S. Sen. David Vitter as arguably one of the most powerful politicians in the state, Cross says. Vitter, a Metairie Republican, bested Melancon and 10 others with 57 percent of the vote.
“Once all the dust settles from this election cycle, all the brouhaha about prostitution will be behind him. Then after another six years in office, he can probably just put it to rest,” Cross says. “Of course, there will always be people who try to make hay of it. That won’t change.”
Maybe Louisiana Democrats have that going for themselves as well, for whatever it’s worth.
Jeremy Alford can be reached at
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MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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We've flip flopped party control in Congress 3 times in the past decade. This is not about a referendum on one party or another, but a general dissatisfaction with the system. Voters take it out on the party in power. According to polls (which seem to be pretty accurate), voters hate Democrats but they hate Republicans even more. And yet, Republicans gained the House. Also consider that more people are identifying themselves as Independent and are turning away from the two-party false dichotomy.
I'm no party lackey, as I recognize that there's not much difference between the two parties in that they are both beholden to corporate masters and the central bank. We're distracted with manufactured drama and partisan gossip, focusing intermittently on domestic and foreign issues just long enough to make us think they will actually do something meaningful for the people.
For all the talk of reducing government and spending, will the Republicans end $40 billion/year in farm subsidies and ethanol subsidies, or restore civil liberties, or end the war on drugs, or abandon attempts to legislate morality, or return power to the states? Will they talk about the 700 military bases we have in 130 countries and the $700 billion being considered for so-called "defense"? Will they repeal the health care mandate that will give a windfall to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, or take meaningful measures to stop the Wall Street mafia from pillaging our wealth? I highly doubt it.