Jeremy Alford: Who will control the Legislature?

As we approach the 2023 statewide election cycle, Republicans are on the verge of capturing a super-majority in both the House and Senate for the first time in modern history.

At the same time, odds-makers predict Louisiana will elect a GOP governor after two terms of a Democrat holding the office.

Republican legislators are excited, and rightfully so.

But they should also proceed with caution if they truly care about legislative independence, a central theme in Capitoland over the past seven years or so.

Independence became a war cry not long after the 2015 election of Gov. John Bel Edwards, mostly by Republican lawmakers who dug in against the Democrat’s choices for House speaker.

The resulting selection of former GOP Speaker Taylor Barras was a memorable moment that followed generations of lawmakers mostly doing what governors told them in regard to leadership races.

This quest for independence blossomed over two terms and eventually included several attempts by the Legislative Branch to gain more power at the expense of the Administrative Branch.

Nearly all of those attempts failed, but lawmakers have pushed in recent years to gain more ground on capital outlay projects, executive order approvals, appointment powers and more.

Lawmakers also successfully called themselves into session during this time, rather than waiting on the governor, and veto override sessions became a routine part of the process.

But what happens in the next term? Will Republican lawmakers have the political will to say no to a Republican governor?

If representatives and senators want to maintain control over chairmanships, committee assignments, bill prioritization, budget drafting, construction spending, office space, parking spots and apartments, they’ll need to develop and elect their own candidates for House speaker and Senate president.

If the next governor is solely responsible for these two leadership posts, then it will be the governor — and not the speaker and president — who selects the next Appropriations chairman.

And it will be the governor who decides which lawmakers get to park by the Capitol and what the floor agendas look like.

Term-limited lawmakers and those who served during yesteryear know this to be true.

The massive freshman class now in office, however, only has first-hand experience with the election of Speaker Clay Schexnayder, which had little to no executive intrigue.

On the other hand, this current freshmen class is arguably the most free-spirited bunch we’ve seen at the Capitol in some time.

These lawmakers were forged in the fires of COVID-19 and govern with a certain amount of distrust and whole lot of independence, meaning they haven’t always fallen in line with their own leadership.

If there is a push to resist executive influence in the next term, it may start with this bunch.

With a super-majority in the Legislature expected, lawmakers may also need to ask themselves who put them there.

Right now that question is easy to answer — business and industry has mostly served as the fuel in campaign finance accounts.

Lately, though, far-right campaigns financed by trial lawyer money have found success in Louisiana, particularly in judicial contests.

This slowly developing trend is notable only because trial lawyer money has largely been found on the left in our politics, squared off soundly against money from business and industry on the right.

Could Republicans next term be elected to the Legislature with support from both business and industry and the trial bar?

As wild as that sounds, it’s possible.

Trial lawyers who donate to candidates are finding they can accomplish many of the same policy goals with libertarians as they do with liberals.

In turn, that could cause more fissures in the GOP legislative ranks during a time when unity is needed to preserve independence. Of course, to do that, the Republican Legislature will have to stand up to the Republican governor as moderate Republican lawmakers strive to compromise with far-right Republican lawmakers.

In short, Republicans are on pace to become so powerful in the Louisiana Capitol they will have no one else to fight but themselves.

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