Free Republic

Governor-elect John Bel Edwards told Republican House leaders Tuesday afternoon that he backed New Orleans Rep. Walt Leger III, a fellow Democrat as Speaker of the House, Majority Leader Lance Harris said. The Republican majority in the Louisiana House would prefer one its members in the top leadership role and passed a resolution to that effect during a meeting in the State Capitol. The 61 GOP representatives in the 105-member Louisiana House met for several hours behind closed doors to discuss how to handle the incoming administration of a Democratic Party governor. Traditionally, Louisiana governors choose the leaders of each...

The answer is less than 24 hours after he was elected. John Bel Edwards tried to run an issue free campaign for governor. Instead, he made the election about David Vitter’s character. While he was busy destroying a good man, Edwards didn’t really go into his vision for Louisiana. Despite his best efforts though, he made some promises to the state. One of them was to hold two special sessions this coming year to deal with structural budget crisis the state is in. Here’s John Bel Edwards making the case via some questions posed on social media. Plans or priorities...

John Bel Edwards' alliances with teachers unions and conventional public school leaders are drawing concern that Louisiana's next governor will seek to revisit legislative battles over charter schools and private school tuition vouchers. In a sign of the strength of Edwards' ties to the unions, the Democrat's first speech since winning Saturday's runoff election was Monday (Nov. 23) at the Louisiana Federation of Teachers convention in Lake Charles. "I know the power and the promise of a public school education when it's done right and when you've got a good partner in the governor's office. Well, let me tell you...

It didn’t take long for Governor-elect John Bel Edwards to show his true colors. In fact, it only took about 12 hours after he was elected governor. The fresh air he was claimed to bring to Louisiana is now a whiff of the stench of Louisiana’s corrupt past. Here are the members of the transition team, according to the Times-Picayune. The transition team, which will operate from the Kirby Smith Hall on the campus of LSU, will include Laura Leach of Lake Charles; Mayor Jamie Mayo of Monroe; Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newel Normand; state Sen. Sharon Weston Broome, of Baton...

Governor-elect John Bel Edwards called expanding Medicaid "among the highest priorities" of his new administration, though he said Sunday (Nov. 22) he may not be able to approve an expanded program on Day One. Edwards has said for months that he would accept the expansion of Medicaid, which requires executive approval, in the early days of his administration. But he said new questions have been raised about a funding mechanism the Legislature finished building in the spring. There is "a difference of opinion" in interpretations of how the bill was drafted and passed, Edwards said. But he did not appear...

11/22/2015-- 4:12 PM CDT Governor-elect John Bel Edwards has named Ben Nevers as his chief of staff. He announced this at a press conference Sunday afternoon. Edwards said that Nevers "has my complete confidence. I could not be happier with the decision that I have made and couldn't be more pleased that Senator Nevers agreed to do this." Ben Nevers has taken positions and supported legislation that has come under fire over the years. Years ago, we wrote about the ongoing controversy regarding man-made reservoirs in Louisiana. One of our concerns was with the Oak Grove community in Washington Parish,...

Today, Louisianans are going to the polls to decide who will lead the state for the next four years. In what was arguably the state's most interesting primary elections since 1987, state Rep. John Bel Edwards and U.S. Sen. David Vitter ended up in the top two slots in the Oct. 24 primary election. Edwards finished in first place among the four gubernatorial candidates receiving votes in the double digits in that primary election, garnering 40 percent of the vote - almost double those of his nearest contender, U.S. Sen. David Vitter, who received 23 percent. Back in May a...

According to the newest state-wide poll of Louisiana taken Thursday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) 71% has inched to within just 4 points of his Democrat opponent, John Bel Edwards. Earlier in the month, Edwards had been handily beating Vitter by as much as +22 points. Proving once again why early voting is an appallingly dumb idea, while the Syrian refugee debate appears to be helping Vitter gain ground (he leads on this issue 40% to 36%), according to the Huffington Post, more than a quarter of a million votes have already been cast in Louisiana. Like almost...

The Fat Lady ain't singing. Not yet. Shades of the 1993 election in which Mary Landrieu rode the wave of the Sugar crises in South America, David Vitter, behind in the polls, all runoff season, is building a typhoon over the international Paris terrror crises. In the last poll of the runoff, John C. Convillion of JMC Analytics notes the race has now dropped to 4 percent difference. Weeks ago, Edwards led by 22 points.

This one is by RRH Elections, which is an offshoot polling operation of Red Racing Horses - a political junky blog we frequent often. They've decided to take up collections from their readers and poll races, and the LAGOV race is the latest project within that effort. The poll is an IVR, which is a robopoll, and the sample size is 359 voters. It was apparently taken in two tranches - Nov. 12 and last night. That's not great, but there is some method to the madness here which might offer some credibility to the results. From the poll memo...

In a final statewide TV debate Monday (Nov. 16), Democrat John Bel Edwards and Republican David Vitter began making the closing arguments in a wild gubernatorial campaign that often took on an angry tone. The two men came out swinging as the debate opened with a question about Syrian refugees; it ended with Vitter making a personal appeal to voters for forgiveness for his prostitution scandal and Edwards making the case that he's the best leader. In between, both men fumed at each other for a series of attacks that each said was a distortion of his record. It was...

Republican presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) are coming to the aid of their colleague Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) in the final week of his Louisi­ana gubernat­ori­al run­off cam­paign. On Sunday, National Journal reported the two presidential hopefuls recorded robocalls voicing sup­port for Vitter, who is trailing Democratic Louisiana state Rep. John Bel Edwards in the heated race. The Vitter campaign told National Journal that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is expected to do the same. Vitter's involvement in the 2007 "D.C. Madam" prostitution scandal resurfaced after a tough Edwards attack ad alleged Vitter "chose...

The latest attack ad targeting Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) in the Louisiana gubernatorial race claims that he chose "prostitutes over patriots." The 30-second spot contrasts Vitter with opponent Louisiana state Rep. John Bel Edwards (D) on their commitment to the armed forces. "The choice for governor couldn't be more clear: John Bel Edwards, who answered our country's call and served as a Ranger in the 82nd Airborne Division," the ad begins, "or David Vitter, who answered a prostitute's call minutes after he skipped a vote honoring 28 soldiers who gave their lives in defense of freedom." "David Vitter chose prostitutes...

Louisiana Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, a Republican who was eliminated from the state's gubernatorial race in the jungle primary last month, has endorsed Democrat John Bel Edwards over Republican Sen. David Vitter. Dardenne announced his support for Edwards at a news conference at Louisiana State University on Thursday, a day after the Vitter campaign rolled out an endorsement of its own from former Republican Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster. The race has split Team Dardenne, which, along with supporters of Republican Scott Angelle, came up short in the October primary. Earlier this month, Dardenne's spokeswoman, Marsanne Golsby, announced her support for...

Pollsters: Win over Vitter still tough path BY MARK BALLARD| MBALLARD@THEADVOCATE.COM Oct. 26, 2015; 7:59 p.m. State Rep. John Bel Edwards’ surprise showing in Saturday’s election gave hope to many that the Democratic Party could elect one of its own to a statewide office for the first time since 2008. Edwards was expected to make the Nov. 21 runoff. What surprised many political professionals was that he polled 40 percent of the vote and outpaced Republican candidates in every region of the state in a low-turnout election.

“Donna [Edwards] has to hope she remains the only minority candidate,” said one longtime Democratic Maryland strategist who has worked on multiple campaigns in the state. “The more white males that jump in, the better it is for her.” Maryland Democrats are bracing for a bitter primary battle split along gender, race, geographic and ideological lines. “It’s going to be a nasty, nasty primary,” one Democratic state legislator told The Hill. “When you have primaries with people that have such similar voting records, it usually comes down to character attacks.” That’s the scene Democrats fear is unavoidable after longtime Sen....

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (RNS) The collected works of Jonathan Edwards, the 18th-century preacher and one of America’s most famous theologians, are now available for download thanks to Logos Bible Software. But for those who don’t want to cough up $1,289.95 to purchase them, there’s good news: The Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale Divinity School lets you view them online for free. The colonial preacher was instrumental in America’s Great Awakening and is known for fiery sermons such as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The 26-volume collection, “The Works of Jonathan Edwards,” comprises more than 10,000 sermons, articles...

Doctors’ house calls are considered a thing of the past, but not in the appointment book of Dr. Carrol Frazier Landrum, an 88-year-old physician from Edwards, Mississippi. The good doctor will see you no matter who you are, where you are, or how much money you have — as long his 2007 Toyota Camry can deliver him to your location. But now his state’s medical board wants to see him gone. Dr. Landrum, a WWII veteran, was forced to make a change after crime drove him from his Edwards, Mississippi, office two years ago, and he couldn’t find another space...

Harvard Law professor and popular criminal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz is the latest high-profile figure accused of engaging in sexual assault some years ago. “In a filing in Florida federal court last week, former federal judge Paul Cassell and Florida plaintiffs attorney Bradley Edwards said that their client was forced as a minor by financier Jeffrey Epstein to have sex with several people, including Dershowitz and Britain’s Prince Andrew,” Reuters reported. But quite unlike how comedian Bill Cosby has handled the accusations against him, Dershowitz came out swinging. In a sworn affidavit filed on Monday, Dershowitz called the charges...

Voters in Louisiana’s 6th District have two choices to represent them in Washington, D.C.: a political newcomer, who served in Gov. Bobby Jindal’s cabinet, or a well-known former governor, who also happens to be a convicted felon. By nearly all measures, Republican Garret Graves, who served as Jindal’s coastal secretary for six years, has the upper hand heading into a Dec. 6 runoff against former Gov. Edwin Edwards, a Democrat. Edwards, a colorful character from a different political era, once famously quipped to reporters that the only way he’d lose an election bid was “if I’m caught in bed with...