The end of December is always a sobering time for me; it’s when I look back at my New Year’s column from the prior year and see just how insightful — or not — I was.
This year’s report card starts with an asterisk.
I was right to foretell a House speaker from Louisiana. Sadly for my GPA, the name I floated was Steve Scalise of Jefferson — "the obvious fallback should the hapless Kevin McCarthy come up short,” I wrote — and NOT Mike Johnson of Benton. In my own defense, I don’t think anyone else predicted Johnson would wind up two heartbeats from the presidency in 2023.
Another fail: I was confident enough that “those desperately seeking someone to block our culture warrior attorney general Jeff Landry” from becoming governor would act on their desperation that I used up my space speculating on who that might be, and settled on U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, of Baton Rouge.
Nope and nope.
Landry got either support or silence from many who swore they’d fight his ascent, stood aside as the few who didn’t join him pointlessly debated one another, and then won easily in the primary. As shows of dominance go, this was a doozy.
So the question now is whether he’ll govern as the ideologue we've watched in his years as AG, or as a pragmatist. I’m going to begin my predictions for next year and say Landry will do both — not because I don’t want to be wrong (OK, I don’t), but because it’ll make sense for him to keep that balance.
Landry should have no trouble getting the ever-more-conservative Legislature to rally 'round red meat priorities — crackdowns on librarians and trans kids, rights for anti-vaxxers, you name them. I’m not entirely pessimistic, though, about his pledge to focus on New Orleans crime; for one thing, he’s already working alongside the progressive district attorney he used to bash, Jason Williams, who also has a practical side.
Nor do I expect him to pull entirely back on Democratic predecessor John Bel Edwards' work to severely limit climate-changing emissions. As Edwards himself has pointed out, Landry may conveniently claim climate change is a hoax, but he wants all the green economy investments heading Louisiana’s way.
As for Graves, not only did he take a pass on the gubernatorial race, he did a bunch of other things that may soon come back to bite him.
First, he cast his lot with the doomed McCarthy, helping him win the speakership after 15 votes and becoming an informal deputy, even as McCarthy’s relationship with Majority Leader Scalise, the next guy in the formal hierarchy, frayed. Then, when a handful of fringe Republicans took McCarthy down, Graves didn’t exactly embrace Scalise’s also-doomed bid for the top job. And back in Louisiana, Graves endorsed his good friend Stephen Waguespack against Landry.
Meanwhile, federal courts finally ordered Louisiana to draw a second majority-Black Congressional District. In practical terms, that means one of Louisiana’s five Republicans will lose a safe seat, courtesy of new Gov. Landry and a loyal Legislature led on the state Senate side by Cameron Henry, who just happens to be a former Scalise aide.
Let me say here that, if Graves finds himself reelected to Congress a year from now, I’ll be eating my words.
Here’s a related prediction: Johnson, the accidental speaker, won’t last much longer than McCarthy. Voting rights cases like Louisiana’s are playing out in other Southern states and should tilt the narrowly divided House back to blue in November. So this time next year, I'm thinking we'll be talking about incoming Speaker Hakeem Jeffries.
And I’ll be pretty surprised if Louisiana’s new Democratic member of Congress isn’t an old one. Back in the 1990s, Cleo Fields represented a sprawling Baton Rouge area district until the U.S. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutionally gerrymandered. Fields has since served two separate stints in the state Senate and remains a Baton Rouge power broker. If any Louisiana pol knows how to play the long game, it’s him.
Before I leave last year’s predictions behind, I’ll give myself a pat on the back for predicting that New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell would survive the clownish recall attempt but not regain her original political mojo. A “long, dispiriting slog” toward the end of a scandal-tinged second term, I predicted. I’m re-upping that one for another year.
And while Gov. John Bel Edwards is heading home to Amite, I don’t think this is the end of his public service. He’s hinted that he could again run for governor in the future, and he could also land a spot in a second Biden administration, should there be one.
His path is tricky, to be sure. As a Democrat, Edwards is unlikely to win a Senate seat in a state that votes solidly red in national politics. And as an abortion opponent, his future in national Democratic circles is severely constrained (although he’s said he’d have a hard time turning down an ambassadorship to the Vatican, which would make sense).
I don’t know where, but we’ve seen over the last eight years that Edwards is simply too talented not to have a next chapter.