Jeremy Alford: With elections mostly over, focus turns to legislative leadership

After this past weekend’s primary elections, the drama and intrigue surrounding the Louisiana Legislature’s next term is dying down a bit.

Most of the membership of the lower and upper chambers has been elected, save 18 races in the House of Representatives and two lingering elections in the state Senate.

Those runoff contests will be decided on Saturday, Nov. 18 — just one month from now.

We won’t have to wait that long, however, to get a big picture take on the next term. Republicans will absolutely dominate the building with what’s expected to be a 72-33 lead over
Democrats in the House and another supermajority spread of 28-11 in the Senate. 

The race for Senate president, in particularly, is becoming super-charged as we near the runoffs. The three main candidates, in fact, are raising serious money and spreading the cash around to colleagues. 

So far the leading candidates include Sen. Cameron Henry of Jefferson, who has $273,000 in his two state finance accounts; Sen. Beth Mizell of Franklinton, who has a combined $117,000; and Sen. Mike Reese of Leesville, who has $569,000 in his own personal campaign finance account and leadership PAC, which is a political action committee.

When it comes to actually spending money, specifically on other elections, Henry leads the way. During the current term of state government, Henry and his leadership PAC have spent more than $115,000 on 49 individual elections, overwhelmingly for Senate seats.

“My approach has been to support my colleagues as early as I could,” said Henry, who made his first donation in 2019.

“I began giving well before the election cycle began, so they would know they had the support of other colleagues.”

Mizell and her PAC have engaged with seven other elections since 2021, spending $3,700. “There are a lot of contentious battles going on and if I can help financially I try to,” she said. 

Reese and his PAC have spent $11,000 on seven races since last year, but that’s about to change.

“In the last few days I’ve started to give more,” said Reese, “and you’ll continue to see me doing that.”

(The Senate president candidates are also raising money on behalf of other candidates, but we’ll cover that topic in a future column.)

The real question that needs to be answered involves Gov.-elect Jeff Landry and his interest in the House and Senate internal leadership elections, which are slated for Monday, Jan. 8, 2024. 

Prior to outgoing Gov. John Bel Edwards and these past two terms of the Legislature, governors traditionally had a strong hand in picking the legislative leadership. That changed under Edwards, with Republican lawmakers ignoring the wishes of the Democratic governor.

The story may change again under Landry, a Republican governor-elect who will have sway over the GOP-dominated Legislature.

The lay of the land in the House of Representatives is more difficult to read due to the much larger membership.

The candidate field so far seems to include GOP Reps. Daryl Deshotel of Hessmer, Phillip DeVillier of Eunice, Brett Geymann of Lake Charles, Jack McFarland of Jonesboro, Neil Riser of Columbia and Zee Zeringue of Houma.

There’s an important numbers game in the House as well, only it’s not necessarily grounded in fundraising.
Instead, it’s a factional problem, with Republicans completely in control but altogether united — there are, after all, all shades of Republicans in the House now, from libertarians and hardline conservative to moderates and recent former Democrats.

How, exactly, are Republicans going to unify their ranks? There are a couple of ideas.

For instance, Rep. Mike Johnson, the chairman of the Central Louisiana Delegation Caucus, is calling for the House Republican Delegation to get behind a speaker candidate in a private vote ahead of January’s organizational session.

Johnson, who insists he’s not running for the top leadership gig, believes solidarity would serve the Louisiana Republican Party better than a slate of candidates that could divide the body at the beginning of the next term. 

When the time comes, Johnson said he would only support a candidate who has secured the support of the delegation and urged his colleagues to join him in “preserving the integrity of the selection process.”

The concept has caught the attention of a few politicos, like Rep. Gabe Firment, who is standing by Johnson in his call for a Delegation candidate.

“There is no limit to what we can accomplish next term with a new governor and a united Legislature,” said Firment.

There may not be a limit on accomplishments next term, but there is a ticking clock in terms of the upcoming leadership votes.

Lawmakers have about two and a half months remaining to figure it out. 

For more Louisiana political news, visit www. LaPolitics.com or follow Alford on Twitter @ LaPoliticsNow.