Free Republic

The Louisiana House swung Republican Friday with state Rep. Noble Ellington’s defection from the Democratic Party. The move has both political and historical significance. “For the first time since Reconstruction, Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives,” said House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Terrytown. “I’m very happy about that,” he said. Like legislatures across the nation, Louisiana’s Legislature is increasingly becoming Republican. Recent defections from the Democratic ranks in Louisiana include state Rep. Fred Mills, state Sen. John Alario, state Sen. John Smith, state Rep. Walker Hines and state Rep. Simone Champagne. Ellington’s switch gave Republicans the additional member...

State Rep. Fred Mills of St. Martin Parish has become the latest lawmaker to defect from the Democratic Party and join the Republican ranks. His move, confirmed by Louisiana Republican Party spokesman Aaron Baer and aides to Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, gives the House GOP Caucus 52 members, widening the plurality it achieved just weeks ago and putting the party within one vote a majority for the first time since post-Civil War Reconstruction. Mills did not respond to messages about his decision. It is widely known among Capitol observers that he is contemplating a bid for the state Senate seat...

GRAND ISLE, La. -- Hurricane Alex didn't hit Louisiana, but its outer bands caused rough seas and plenty of rain in southeastern part of the state, impacting oil spill response efforts. Gov. Bobby Jindal was out on the water Thursday checking on Grand Isle. “You can see literally this is some of the oil we just literally have gotten out of the water in the pass. We’re over 70 days after the explosion. There’s nothing in these passes to stop this oil coming right in from Barataria Bay,” Jindal said. Just east of Grand Isle, Jindal watches oil flow through...

BATON ROUGE -- State Rep. Simone Champagne of Jeanerette said today that she is leaving the Democratic Party to join the ranks of the Republicans. Her change of party means that at least for the next few weeks, the balance in the 105-member House will be split evenly among Democrats and Republicans: 51 in each party. There are three independents. On Aug. 1, Rep. Wayne Waddell, R-Shreveport, will leave the House after 12 years, giving the Democrats a one-seat advantage. House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, has not called the election for the conservative Shreveport district to pick Waddell's replacement. House...

A white Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. "I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else." Bardwell...

The military commander who helped bring order to New Orleans in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 told people at a Baton Rouge luncheon on hurricane preparedness issues Saturday to start right away getting ready for the next potential disaster. “I often say people in south Louisiana get more excited about getting ready for football season than getting ready for hurricane season,” retired Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré said. He was addressing a crowd of about 100 representatives of church groups and faith-based organizations at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Baton Rouge. But the cost of waiting to...

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - According to Livingston Parish sheriff's officials, a suspected burglar was shot, then caught Saturday morning after trying to break into a shed. The reported burglary happened near Highway 63 and Tyler Ballard Road. A Livingston sheriff's deputies say the suspected burglar, 32-year-old Charles Avants, tried to break into the shed when the homeowner shot Avants in the arm. Avants got away but went straight to a Hammond hospital for treatment, where sheriff deputies say they found him and arrested him. He has been charged with aggravated burglary and simple Burglary. His bond has been set...

DENHAM SPRINGS, LA (WAFB) - Livingston Parish sheriff's deputies say a woman won't be charged with shooting and killing her boyfriend because they believe the shooting was done in self-defense. Deputies say 49-year-old Suzanne Smith shot 26-year-old Mark Lockwood Tuesday morning in her Denham Springs home after he allegedly held a knife to her throat. Lockwood was shot once in the chest. Deputies say they're still investigating, but everything right now points to self-defense.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The more Louisiana lawmakers talk about the state budget, the more it becomes clear a slew of them had very little idea what they approved in this year's nearly $30 billion spending plan. That includes many members of committees that spent hours reviewing and helping construct plans for spending billions of dollars in taxpayer money. The details and nuance, it seems, were less important when the state was flush with cash. [SNIP] Meanwhile, state spending grew by $1 billion in the current year that began July 1, an increase of 12 percent. That's an area...

AP Article, can't be posted

St. Tammany Parish authorities caught and killed a large alligator that attacked an 11-year-old boy near Slidell Wednesday afternoon, slit open the animal's belly and retrieved the boy's arm that the gator had bitten off at the shoulder.As soon as Devin Funck's arm was rescued from the stomach of the alligator, it was wrapped in a wet towel, stashed in an ice chest and rushed by a sheriff's deputy and a Slidell 1st District firefighter to Ochsner Medical Center, where the boy had been taken by helicopter two hours earlier.Devin's condition was undetermined, but authories near Slidell were hopeful that...

WASHINGTON — A Washington watchdog has filed a complaint against Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, suggesting she may have traded her influence on a specific earmark for $30,000 in campaign contributions. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on Tuesday demanded the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. district courts in Louisiana and Texas investigate whether Landrieu, who is in her second term, broke federal law back in 2001 by including a $2 million earmark in the District of Columbia appropriations bill for a company whose lobbyists had thrown her a fundraiser just days earlier. That event, held four days...

Louisiana state Sen. Robert Adley of Bossier Parish has switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Adley's move comes a month before the state's new Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, takes office. Adley called himself a conservative reformer with the same philosophy as Jindal. In discussing the party switch, the longtime Democrat Adley said he wants to be as effective as possible in dealing with the new governor. "I have worked with a number of reform governors and spent years trying to get reform in Louisiana," Adley said during his announcement at the Bossier City Municipal Complex. "We've gotten close;...

There is a bizarre story about a district attorney's stolen sport utility vehicle and the accused thief behind bars. The suspected crook claims she stole the vehicle from a New Orleans hotel to pay for a medical procedure for her husband. However, the story doesn't end there. WAFB's Keitha Nelson has more. Tony Falterman is the district attorney for Ascension, Assumption and St. James parishes. Falterman's keys could open a lot of doors, and in the wrong hands, change thousands of lives. He says, "My keys are the most important thing in my life." So, when Falterman's SUV was stolen,...

MORGAN CITY, La. (AP) — A member of the Louisiana Democratic Party's central committee has been arrested by federal agents who accused him of harboring aliens, his defense attorney said Wednesday. Lenny Dartez, the husband of state Rep. Carla Dartez, a Democrat representing the Morgan City area, was taken into custody Tuesday at his business, said Dartez's attorney, Mike Skinner. Dartez employs labor crews in the area, Skinner said. Dartez was named in a federal complaint issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and taken to a federal magistrate in Lafayette, who released him on his own recognizance, Skinner said. been...

The executive director of the state Democratic Party took a leave of absence Thursday after he was arrested on a count of third-offense DWI. John Daniel “Danny” Ford, 31, was arrested Thursday by city police, Parish Prison booking documents said. Besides being suspected of driving while intoxicated, Ford was cited for driving over the median, failure to signal and reckless operation of a vehicle, booking documents said. Ford, 143 Cloud Drive, is out of jail on a $20,000 bond, documents show. Ford will step down temporarily from the Democratic Party’s top administrative job at a time when the fall election...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Former Louisiana state film industry recruiter Mark Smith pleaded guilty on Friday to federal charges that he took more than $60,000 in bribes to help inflate state tax credits for a motion picture producer. Smith headed the state's motion picture development effort in the Department of Economic Development under Govs. Mike Foster and Kathleen Blanco from 2002 to 2006. The state offers tax credits to movie investors and producers in a program that has brought many films, TV movies, music videos and commercials to Louisiana. The charges against Smith -- bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery...

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Wanted: Louisiana citizens with fundraising prowess, the ability to mount formidable campaigns only two months before an election - and Democratic voter registration cards. It's apparently a tough request, as Democrats say they're having trouble finding people to run for two statewide elected positions on this fall's ballot, insurance commissioner and secretary of state - even though the Republican incumbents, Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon and Secretary of State Jay Dardenne, have been on the job less than a year. "We don't really have anybody on the radar right now. That's not for lack of trying,"...

William F. Buckley, the father of the modern conservative movement and my intellectual godfather, once stated: "We eschew the recital of our credenda." I used those august words for the first quote in the first chapter of the first book I ever wrote, "The Devil is in the Details: Essays on Law, Race, Politics & Religion" (1999). I didn't understand those words then, but now I see. The Buckley quotes means "I hate to do what I have to do, but this is what I must do." At the beginning of 2007 America viewed that farce of a coronation the...

I need some culinary shopping help.I am sponsoring a member of our military through www.AdoptaPlatoon.com. When you sponsor a service member, you commit to write to them weekly, and send a "care package" every month. (My guy is in Baghdad and has a laptop PC with Internet access, so we get to exchange emails several times a week!)Any, I have recently learned that he yearns for "Fish Steaks in Louisiana Hot Sauce" and I am trying to surpise him for his upcoming birthday with a shipment of them.The problem is that I cannot find anyone that carries this item, even...