Louisiana Politics: Outside players are likely for leadership, redistricting

Lawmakers have long had the luxury of diving into redistricting sessions as lobbyists and major sat back and watched — usually from a distance.
That’s because outside of the rails, those who could influence life inside the rails considered the topic off limits and internal to the House and Senate. In recent history, leadership elections have been hands off for government relations pros as well, with a few exceptions here and there.
But that all could change this term, according to some in the know, such as Senate President John Alario. As part of last week’s LSU post-election forum, while speaking about the upcoming leadership elections, Alario said any diminution of the role traditionally played by the governor could result in increased activity by special interests, donors and/or lobbyists.
“The opposite of having (Gov. John Bel Edwards) support someone is to have somebody being supported by some outside interests,” Alario said, adding that those interests would most likely be interested in disrupting the incumbent’s second term.
While there’s already money from special interests floating around the leadership ether, the upcoming redistricting process is attracting outside eyes as well. For example, the Louisiana-based Fair Districts, a “grass-roots, nonpartisan alliance of citizens advocating for redistricting reform,” is said to be firming up its operations and expanding ahead of the 2020 regular session.
Both mainline political parties are teeing up their maps and arguments as well, and in some corners even potential litigation strategies are being penned.
As for possible policy proposals for the 2020 regular session, we just need to look at other states. Advocates in Illinois, Oklahoma, Oregon and Virginia are currently pushing proposals to take mapmaking powers away from lawmakers and give them instead to nonpartisan commissions. If that happens, they’ll join 14 other states that already have such panels.
In regard to the action on the streets ahead of the actual 2020 Census, we should begin seeing increased activity from nonprofits and partisan groups here fairly soon. They’ll be working overtime to make sure the federal head-counters capture as many people as possible. (A massive coalition in Texas was just created to spearhead such efforts to our west.)
The 2020 Census and 2021 redistricting session represent a complex web of politics and population. Some states are already reviewing and approving plans as others apply new mathematical systems to their mapmaking. Plus questions linger about how prison populations should be handled and whether new forms of data should be gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau.
That’s all to say the process will probably be ugly, especially in Louisiana, with a Democrat in the Governor’s Mansion, a GOP supermajority in the Senate and another near-supermajority in the House.

Election battles underway
Louisiana’s first major municipal race of the new cycle (let’s just go ahead and admit we’re in the next election cycle) is already underway ahead of the 2020 spring ballot.
Businessman Friday Ellis will be challenging Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo in the April 4 municipal elections. Qualifying is in January.
Ellis, LABI’s 2019 Free Enterprise Champion, has already been endorsed by Rep.-elect Michael Echols in his bid to unseat the Democratic incumbent. Regarding the challenge, Mayo released a statement to local reporters noting that Ellis “will be the fourth former city employee to seek the office of mayor during my administration.”
The spring presidential primary ballot will also host several other races for mayor, a district judgeship, an appellate seat, the Republican State Central Committee and the Democratic State Central Committee. Plus, it’ll feature presidential nominees (their filing deadline is Jan. 10).
The fall ballots next year will be even hotter, obviously, with President Donald Trump at the top and U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy defending his post alongside members of our congressional delegation. We’ll see yet another state Supreme Court election next fall, and two races are on tap for the Public Service Commission. The jungle primary is scheduled for Nov. 3 and the runoffs, as needed, will be Dec. 5, 2020.
As of now there is only one proposed constitutional amendment slotted for the November ballot, and it would add language to Louisiana’s charter to ensure there are no rights or privileges allowed in the document for abortions and abortion-related funding.
In other news, and just in case the above review wasn’t forward-looking enough for you, intrepid journalist Gregory Todd Hilburn of the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana recently offered us a forecast of the 2023 governor’s race.
Hilburn led his story with Attorney General Jeff Landry (unavailable for comment) and Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser (he said he is “absolutely” thinking about running).
As for the rest, Hilburn had this to add: “Among other Republicans who might have the 2023 race on their radar are Congressman Garret Graves of Baton Rouge, state Sen. Sharon Hewitt of Slidell, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, Treasurer John Schroder and Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain. Republican Congressman Steve Scalise of Metairie is popular statewide, but he declined to run for governor this year even when asked directly by President Donald Trump to enter the race.”
For more Louisiana political news, visitwww.LaPolitics.com or follow Alford on Twitter @LaPoliticsNow.