Jeff Landry was less than 200 votes shy of winning the Republican primary for Louisiana's 3rd Congressional District outright on Saturday. According to results from the Secretary of State's office, the New Iberia attorney won 12 of 13 parishes in the district. He handily won his home parish of Iberia, as well as neighboring St. Martin and dominated in some lower river parishes including St. James and St. Charles.
Former state Rep. Hunt Downer's strongest support was in his home parish of Terrebonne, where he won 64 percent of the vote, and a respectable showing by third candidate Kristian Magar, who ran on a shoestring budget, appear to be the main factors that forced the race into a runoff between Downer and Landry, scheduled for Oct. 2. (Downer finished with 36 percent of the vote; Magar garnered 14 percent.)
The ultimate winner will go on to face well-funded Democrat Ravi Sangisetty in the November general election. The drawn-out primary, which has already turned negative and expensive, has concerned at least one conservative group who feels it's time for Republicans to unite. WDSU reports that the Tea Party of Louisiana has called for Downer to drop out of the race. “Mr. Downer should do what’s in the best interest of the liberty movement and withdraw from this race," spokesman Chris Comeaux says. "It’s not going to get any easier for him.” Comeaux adds that his organization plans to actively campaign against Downer.
The retired major general is not ready to give up the fight. The Downer campaign released the following statement regarding their intention to continue on, and perhaps try to elevate the discourse in a race that has already devolved into mudslinging. "I am excited about the next month talking about the issues that affect South Louisiana and the future of America with the residents of South Louisiana," he said. "I got in this race to build a better America for our children and grandchildren. I have always run a race on the issues and am confident the next phase of this campaign will be focused on the future and not the past."
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 should put together a donation fund to help pay his expenses if he agreeds to get out of the race...hint hint.