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      Republican victory in Louisiana signals hard-right turn for once bipartisan state

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      When Louisiana’s attorney general, Jeff Landry, won the open gubernatorial primary on 14 October, it not only ended eight years of relatively productive bipartisan control of the state’s government: it marked a hard-right shift in Louisiana’s politics that could set back environmental policy and human and civil rights for decades to come.Landry’s outright victory in the jungle primary – a system unique to Louisiana, in which all voters, regardless of party, vote on all candidates at the local, state and federal levels – shocked voters and pundits in the state alike. Landry was long favored to triumph, but it was expected he would be forced into a runoff. Ultimately, the state’s Democratic party offered no meaningful resistance to Landry’s campaign, and he cruised to a win, capturing more than 50% of the votes cast in a low-turnout race.The morning after the election, Robert Mann, a political science professor at Louisiana State University and a frequent critic of Landry, announced he would be leaving his position. He said he had no confidence the school’s administration would protect him from the changing political headwinds.To outsiders, Mann’s reaction may seem dramatic. Louisianans understood fully: in 2021, Landry used his office to try to pressure LSU into dismissing the professor over his argument that the university needed to require students to test regularly for Covid-19.The incident wasn’t isolated. In February 2021, Landry filed a lawsuit against the Times-Picayune reporter Andrea Gallo over her investigation into sexual misconduct charges against one of his closest aides. Landry ultimately lost his meritless case.As Gallo noted, winning wasn’t necessarily the point.“I think that it sends a very clear message to reporters, and to the public of Louisiana, that if you request documents from the attorney general’s office you better watch out, because you might be subjected to a lawsuit,” Gallo told the US Press Freedom Tracker, a website that documents attacks on media in the United States.In 2022, Landry had a simple message for women in Louisiana who opposed the abortion ban that took effect when the US supreme court eliminated the rights Roe v Wade had once established.“If you don’t like the laws in the state, you can move,” Landry said.Of course, most people in Louisiana – where the median income is just over $27,000 a year – can’t just pick up and leave. Which means they’re all but stuck with Landry as governor for at least four years come January.In his election’s immediate aftermath, Landry moved to shore up his control of an already conservative legislature. Within three days, the state senator Cameron Henry, a hardline conservative and Landry ally, had cleared the field to become his chamber’s next president.While Republicans have controlled both chambers throughout the eight years the outgoing Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, has spent in office, the senate’s leadership in particular has been generally less hardline than either rank-and-file members or Landry.Critically, they have worked with both Edwards and Democratic lawmakers on a host of issues.Landry, of course, is having none of that. As the Times-Picayune also noted when writing about Henry’s ascension, Landry has made it clear in private conversations he wants people loyal to him in key leadership roles.That means he is unlikely to face resistance to many of his policies. For women, Black people, the LGBTQ+ community and others in the hard right’s crosshairs, that’s an ominous possibility.Landry opposes any form of minimum wage and is generally hostile to so-called “welfare net” programs designed to help lower-income and working-class people. He backed a plan to make public juvenile court records public – but only in the state’s predominantly Black parishes.Although that bill died in the senate, it faces a significantly brighter future next year with Landry in the governor’s office.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIndeed, Edwards and his veto pen were able to either stall or beat back entirely a host of measures that could re-materialize.Those include a “don’t say gay” bill banning classroom discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity, anti-drag measures, additional restrictions on access to healthcare for trans people, further criminalization of abortion and contraceptives, and deeper erosion of the state’s barely existent gun control measures.Even the state house member Ray Garofalo’s widely ridiculed bill requiring schools to teach the nonexistent “good” side of slavery could be resurrected.Environmental protections will also be on the chopping block. Landry memorably heckled Barack Obama during the former president’s 2011 State of the Union address, holding up a sign that said “drilling = jobs”. With the petroleum industry still one of Louisiana’s single most powerful forces, areas like Cancer Alley – a stretch along the Mississippi River overrun by refineries and pollution – will probably be especially hard-hit as Republicans roll back the state’s modest pollution controls.“On social welfare issues, we’ll be Florida on steroids,” said JP Morrell, the New Orleans city council president and a former state legislator. Though a Democrat, Morrell’s stint as a state lawmaker saw him successfully move some legislation – and blunt some of his conservative counterparts’ worst bills – in part because he was able to establish working relationships with key Republicans.Morrell contends that will be an even more important skill for Democrats now that Landry is governor and Republicans have a stranglehold on both chambers.But with a supermajority in hand, Republicans won’t necessarily need Democrats. For instance, one area Democrats and Republicans have worked together on during Edwards’s governorship has been the annual spending bills. Edwards’ Republican predecessor, Bobby Jindal, left the state government’s books in shambles thanks to his relentless effort to slash spending on education and social services.Edwards, by contrast, will leave office with a $330m surplus.While memories of Jindal’s disastrous tenure are still fresh in Louisiana’s collective conscience, Landry and most Republican state legislators are budget hawks. In fact, Republicans are already discussing significant changes to the tax code that would reduce what wealthy people and corporations pay – even as they are contemplating a new round of cuts to education and other safety net programs.“It will be like the Jindal years, but worse” if Republicans decide to go that route, Morrell said.That means Democrats, who represent large urban areas like New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport, will be spending whatever political capital they have accumulated simply protecting their communities.Invoking his city’s status as the most culturally relevant on the global stage, Morrell said: “For better or for worse, you have to protect New Orleans from the worst of it. You’re not going to save the rest of the state.” More

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      US supreme court allows delay in redrawing Louisiana map that dilutes Black voters’ power

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      The US supreme court said on Thursday it would not immediately lift a lower court’s order blocking a judge from holding a hearing to consider a new congressional map for Louisiana that increases the power of Black voters. The decision could mean that Black voters in Louisiana will have to vote under a map that has been found to illegally weaken their votes for a second time.The decision, which had no noted dissents, is the latest step in an increasingly complex legal battle over Louisiana’s congressional maps. A federal judge last year ordered the state to redraw its six districts to add a second district where Black voters could elect a candidate of their choice. Black voters currently represent about a third of Louisiana’s population but have a majority in just one district.The US supreme court put that decision on hold while it considered a similar case from Alabama. After the court upheld a ruling requiring Alabama to redraw its maps in June, it allowed the Louisiana case to move forward.In a highly unusual move, a split three-judge panel from the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit issued an order in late September blocking a judge from holding a hearing on a remedial map. The two highly conservative judges in the majority, Edith Jones and James Ho, said the lower judge had not given Louisiana Republicans enough of a chance to defend themselves or prepare a legally compliant map.The challengers in the case immediately appealed to the US supreme court, warning that putting off the hearing could mean that Louisiana might not get a new congressional map until after the 2024 election. Such a ruling would mean that Black voters in the state would have to be subject to two federal elections under maps that illegally weakened their votes.“The writ issued by the panel risks injecting chaos into the 2024 election cycle by leaving in place a preliminary injunction barring use of the map the legislature adopted in 2022, while casting doubt on whether or when a lawful remedial map can be promptly developed and implemented,” lawyers for the challengers wrote.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, part of the liberal wing on the US supreme court, wrote a concurring opinion saying that the court’s decision not to get involved should not be seen as condoning the decision from the fifth circuit panel “in these or similar circumstances”.She also noted that she understood the panel’s ruling to halt proceedings until Louisiana had had an opportunity to draw its own maps. The state, she noted, had conceded in a court filing that it would not draw maps while the case was pending, clearing the lower court to “presumably resume the remedial process” while the full fifth circuit considered an appeal of the case.Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, noted that Louisiana won’t hold its congressional primaries until November 2024, so there should still be plenty of time to hold a full trial on the maps and get new ones in place before then. “The real question is whether any appeals after that trial mean that the redrawing gets put on hold pending appeals,” he wrote in an email.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionStephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, said the supreme court’s ruling made it “somewhat less likely” there would be a new map before 2024, but added: “It’s still a real possibility that there’ll be a new map in time.”In addition to Alabama and Louisiana, observers are closely watching Georgia and Florida, where lawsuits seek to give Black voters a chance to elect their preferred candidate. Because voting in the US south is often racially polarized, any districts designed to give Black voters an opportunity to elect their preferred candidate is likely to benefit Democrats. More

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      Supreme Court Delays Efforts to Redraw Louisiana Voting Map

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      The Louisiana dispute is one of several voting rights cases churning through the courts that challenge a state’s congressional map.The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower-court ruling that delays an effort to redraw Louisiana’s congressional map, prolonging a bitter clash over the representation of Black voters in the state.The order temporarily leaves in place a Republican-drawn map that a federal judge had said diluted the power of Black voters while an appeal moves through the lower courts.Civil rights groups had sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court abruptly canceled a scheduled hearing aimed at drafting a new map for Louisiana. That map was to include two districts in which Black voters represent a large enough share of the population to have the opportunity to select a candidate. The appeals court said that the state legislature should have more time to redraw its own map before a lower court stepped in.The Supreme Court’s order was unsigned, which is typical when the justices rule on emergency applications, and there were no public dissents.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a brief concurring opinion, emphasized that Louisiana should resolve the dispute in time for the 2024 election.In asking the Supreme Court to intervene, the plaintiffs had argued that delays in the case could complicate efforts to instate a new map by the next election, leaving the state with a version that lumps Black voters from different parts of the state into one voting district, diluting their power.By the time the Supreme Court issued its order on Thursday, a hearing date had passed. Another has been set for February.The consolidated cases, Galmon v. Ardoin and Robinson v. Ardoin, are part of a larger fight over redistricting. State lawmakers in the South have contested orders to refashion congressional maps and establish additional districts to bolster Black representation. The outcomes could help tilt control of the House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority.Weeks earlier, the court refused a similar request by Alabama, which had asked the justices to reinstate a map with only one majority-Black district. A lower court had found that Republican lawmakers blatantly disregarded its order to create a second majority-Black district or something “close to it.”At issue in Louisiana is a voting map passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in the winter of 2022. The map carved the state into six districts, with only one majority-Black district, which joined Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the state’s two largest cities. About a third of the population in the state is Black.The case has reached the Supreme Court before.A coalition that included the N.A.A.C.P. Louisiana State Conference, the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice and Louisiana voters sued state officials and said the map unfairly weakened the power of Black voters.A district court, siding with the plaintiffs, temporarily blocked Louisiana from using its map in any upcoming elections. A new map, it said, should include an additional district where Black voters could choose a representative. The court gave the Legislature until June 20, 2022, to sign off on a redrawn map.Louisiana immediately appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, and a three-judge panel unanimously denied the request. The state then asked the Supreme Court to intervene.The Supreme Court paused the case until it ruled in the Alabama case, Allen v. Milligan, which concerned similar questions. That essentially allowed the Republican-drawn map in Louisiana to go into effect during the 2022 election.The court lifted the pause in June after a majority of the justices, in a surprise decision, found Alabama’s map had unfairly undercut the power of Black voters. The justices said the appeals court should review the case before the 2024 elections. More

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      Louisiana professor quits in protest over rightwinger’s victory in governor’s race

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      A prominent professor at Louisiana’s largest public university has said he is resigning after an extremist Republican candidate won the state’s gubernatorial election – a victory some fear could accelerate the already conservative-dominated state’s march into unfettered rightwing governance.Robert Mann, a journalism professor at Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication and a well-known political commentator, said he will step down at the end of the academic year in response to Jeff Landry’s victory in the election to become governor.Landry had previously called for Mann to be disciplined by LSU after the academic criticized him online.“I have this morning informed my dean that I will step down from my position at LSU at the end of the school year,” Mann posted on X.“My reasons are simple: the person who will be governor in January has already asked LSU to fire me. And I have no confidence the leadership of this university would protect the Manship School against a governor’s efforts to punish me and other faculty members.“I’ve seen too much cowardice and appeasement from top LSU officials already. That being the case, it’s clearly best to remove myself from the equation to avoid any harm to the school I love.“I’ll add that I’ve suspected for the past two years it would come to this, so I’ve been making plans for some time. The minute that I knew Landry wanted me fired and was willing to call the [university] president to demand it, I knew there would be dark days for LSU if he won.”Landry won a multi-party – or “jungle” – primary in Louisiana on Saturday with little meaningful resistance from the state’s Democratic party. He is preparing to be sworn in as governor in January after capturing a majority of the votes cast in Saturday’s race.As attorney general, Landry railed against coronavirus vaccine and masking requirements, and measures to address the climate crisis, which he has called “a hoax”.In 2020, he joined with other Republican attorneys general in a lawsuit which attempted to overturn the results of the election that saw Donald Trump lose the presidency to Joe Biden. Landry was endorsed by Trump in the gubernatorial race.Mann – once the communications director for late former Democratic Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco – became the subject of Landry’s ire in 2021 after criticizing the attorney general’s opposition to vaccine mandates.Landry, who sued the Biden administration after it mandated Covid vaccinations for federal contractors, had been opposed to stricter vaccine requirements at LSU. And he sent a representative to a university meeting where vaccines were discussed.In response, Mann tweeted: “Louisiana AG Jeff Landry sending some flunkie to the LSU Faculty Senate meeting today to read a letter attacking Covid vaccines is quite the move from a guy who considers himself ‘pro-life’.”Landry was unhappy with the characterization. He said he had spoken with the LSU president “and expressed my disdain and expectation for accountability”.He added: “This type of disrespect and dishonesty has no place in our society – especially at our flagship university by a professor. I hope LSU takes appropriate action soon.”Neither Landry nor LSU immediately responded to requests for comment.The outgoing Louisiana governor, John Bel Edwards, a centrist Democrat, has used his veto power to prevent some of the most extreme Republican legislation from passing in the state.Edwards issued 319 vetoes in his first seven and a half years as governor, including against a law which would have dropped compulsory school Covid vaccinations and a “don’t say gay” bill similar to the one in Florida, which would have banned teachers from mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools.Landry’s victory means Louisiana will have a Republican governor and legislature, which will be eager to revisit efforts to enact those laws. More

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      Trump-backed Republican Jeff Landry wins Louisiana governor’s race

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      Attorney General Jeff Landry, a rightwing Republican backed by Donald Trump, has won the Louisiana governor’s race, holding off a crowded field of candidates.The win is a major victory for the Republican party as they reclaim the governor’s mansion for the first time in eight years. Landry will replace current governor John Bel Edwards, who was unable to seek re-election due to consecutive term limits.Edwards is the only Democratic governor in the south.“Today’s election says that our state is united,” Landry said during his victory speech on Saturday night. “It’s a wake-up call and it’s a message that everyone should hear loud and clear, that we the people in this state are going to expect more out of our government from here on out.”By garnering more than half of the votes, Landry avoided an expected runoff under the state’s “jungle primary” system. The last time there wasn’t a gubernatorial runoff in Louisiana was in 2011 and 2007, when Bobby Jindal, a Republican, won the state’s top position.The governor-elect, who celebrated with supporters during a watch party in Broussard, Louisiana, described the election as “historic”.Landry, 52, has raised the profile of attorney general since taking office in 2016. He has used his office to champion conservative policy positions.More recently, Landry has been in the spotlight over his involvement and staunch support of Louisiana laws that have drawn much debate, including banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths, the state’s near-total abortion ban that doesn’t have exceptions for cases of rape and incest, and a law restricting youths’ access to “sexually explicit material” in libraries, which opponents fear will target LGBTQ+ books.Landry has repeatedly clashed with Edwards over matters in the state, including LGBTQ rights, state finances and the death penalty. However the Republican has also repeatedly put Louisiana in national fights, including over Joe Biden’s policies that limit oil and gas production and Covid vaccine mandates.Landry spent two years on Capitol Hill, beginning in 2011, where he represented Louisiana’s third US congressional district. Prior to his political career, Landry served 11 years in the Louisiana Army National Guard, was a local police officer, sheriff’s deputy and attorney.Landry has made clear that one of his top priorities as governor would be addressing crime in urban areas. The Republican has pushed a tough-on-crime rhetoric, calling for more “transparency” in the justice system and continuing to support capital punishment. Louisiana has the nation’s second-highest murder rate per capita.Along the campaign trail, Landry faced political attacks from opponents on social media and in interviews, calling him a bully and making accusations of backroom deals to gain support.He also faced scrutiny for skipping all but one of the major-televised debates. More

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      Jeff Landry, a Hard-Line Republican, Is Elected Governor of Louisiana

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      The victory by Mr. Landry, the state’s attorney general, secures Republican control of Louisiana after eight years of divided government.Jeff Landry, the Louisiana attorney general and a hard-line conservative, trounced a crowded field of candidates on Saturday to become the state’s next governor, cementing Republican control of Louisiana after eight years of divided government. Mr. Landry, a brash conservative who repeatedly fought Democratic policies in court as Louisiana’s top lawyer, will replace Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat limited to two terms. In Saturday’s “jungle primary,” which pits candidates of any political affiliation against one other, Mr. Landry stunned many political watchers by winning more than 50 percent of the vote and eliminating the need for a runoff. His victory guarantees a far-right government for Louisiana — a state where Republicans have controlled the Legislature for a decade but had faced resistance from Mr. Edwards, who vetoed several bills, including ones targeting L.G.B.T.Q. people. It comes at a moment when the state is confronting soaring insurance rates and dwindling population numbers. The wide field of more than a dozen candidates, which included Democrats, independents and rival Republicans, had set steep odds for Mr. Landry to win outright. Had no candidate secured a simple majority, the two top vote-getters would have faced off in a runoff election next month. But Mr. Landry won with 51.6 percent of the vote, followed by Shawn Wilson, a Democrat and the state’s former transportation secretary, who secured 25.9 percent of the vote. None of the other candidates — a group that included Stephen Waguespack, a top business lobbyist and aide to former Gov. Bobby Jindal; John Schroder, the state treasurer; and Sharon Hewitt, a state senator — reached double digits. Mr. Landry, a confrontational litigator and politician, had won over much of the Republican base by battling Mr. Edwards and the Biden administration in court over pandemic vaccine mandates, efforts to work with social media companies to limit the spread of misleading or false theories, and environmental regulations. He served as a sheriff’s deputy and two-term lawmaker in the House of Representatives as the Tea Party took hold in American government. But it was over the last eight years as attorney general where Mr. Landry flexed the power of a political office and his particular style of combative conservatism. During the coronavirus pandemic, he challenged vaccine and mask mandates on the local and national level for health care workers, students and federal workers, voicing skepticism even as the vaccines were proven to help stem the spread and toll of the virus. He has also helped lead lawsuits that resulted in a federal judge restricting the Biden administration from speaking with social media companies and saw the Supreme Court rein in the administration’s ability to reduce carbon emissions. And he has defended some of Louisiana’s more controversial decisions, including a congressional map that Black voters have challenged as a violation of a landmark civil rights law and its abortion law, one of the strictest in the nation. (At one point, Mr. Landry openly said that critics could leave the state.)During his campaign for governor, Mr. Landry vowed to address crime in the state, though critics observed that countering crime fell under the jurisdiction of the attorney general. He also pledged to stop the “woke agenda” in Louisiana schools and to support the rights of parents to make decisions for their children, a nod to a push he championed to restrict access to gender-affirming care for transgender children and literature deemed to be sexually explicit. More

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      Hard-Line Republican Leads Race to Succeed Louisiana’s Democratic Governor

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      Should Jeff Landry, the state attorney general and front-runner, win, he will likely drive Louisiana further right on issues such as crime and L.G.B.T.Q. rights.Jeff Landry, the hard-line conservative leading the race for governor of Louisiana, surveyed the crowd packed into a small restaurant in Monroe, where his staff had covered the tables and a lone Halloween skeleton in his blue-and-yellow campaign merchandise.“How would y’all like to finish this in October?” Mr. Landry, the state attorney general, said, teasing the possibility of his winning the state’s all-party primary outright this Saturday and foreclosing the need for a runoff election next month.He did not offer specifics about any issues. He did not mention any of his opponents, whom he has largely refused to debate. But his undisputed status as the race’s front-runner has suggested that for much of Louisiana, there has been little need for him to do any of that.Mr. Landry has parlayed his aggressive litigation against the Biden administration and Gov. John Bel Edwards, a conservative Democrat who is term-limited, into a huge war chest, a slew of early Republican endorsements and what appears to be a comfortable lead in a crowded primary field.Also on the ballot in Saturday’s “jungle primary” are two Democrats, four independents and seven other Republicans, none of whom have had the same visibility in recent years as Mr. Landry has had as a headline-making statewide office holder.Should he win and cement Republican dominance of Louisiana government — Republicans already have a supermajority in the state House and Senate, and former President Donald J. Trump won about 60 percent of the state vote in both 2016 and 2020 — there is little question that Mr. Landry will drive the state further to the right on issues such as crime, the environment and L.G.B.T.Q. rights.“You can’t just be for the white collar — you’ve got to be for the blue collar, the no collar, the no shirt,” Shawn Wilson, a Democratic candidate, center, told union workers in Gonzales, La. “You’ve got to be for everybody.”Emily Kask for The New York Times“I think the key to leadership is solving problems, creating coalitions, bringing people together,” said Stephen Waguespack, a Republican candidate. “In modern politics, that’s hard to sell.”Emily Kask for The New York TimesThe sea change in leadership would come at a moment when Louisiana is losing population while most of its Southern neighbors boom, with employers and families worried about growing brain drain, intensifying natural disasters and soaring insurance rates.Mr. Landry’s dominance of the field has dampened the state’s typically raucous politics, leaving the remaining candidates to essentially jockey for second place in the primary on Saturday. If nobody wins more than 50 percent of the vote, which most election watchers expect, the top two candidates will face off in a runoff on Nov. 18.Mr. Edwards, the only Democratic governor left in the Deep South, twice bucked the state’s conservative bent in elections and has retained support over his two terms. At times, he has managed to head off conservative social measures that have easily become law in nearby states run by Republicans, though he has supported stringent limits on abortion access and gun rights.The race to replace him underscores how Louisiana’s particular brand of populist, personality-driven local politics has increasingly given way to a focus on nationalized issues that split along urban and rural lines. It has also left candidates struggling to energize voters disillusioned by bitter national divisions and weary of inflation, grueling heat and the lasting toll of the coronavirus pandemic.Open to all candidates regardless of political leaning, the primary field includes Shawn Wilson, a Democrat and former state transportation secretary, and Hunter Lundy, an evangelical independent and former trial lawyer. It also includes three prominent Republicans: Sharon Hewitt, a state senator; Stephen Waguespack, a former aide to Gov. Bobby Jindal and business lobbyist, and John Schroder, the state treasurer.Hunter Lundy, left, an independent and former trial attorney, at a campaign event on Tuesday.Emily Kask for The New York Times“What we try to say is, if you want Louisiana to be different, then you have to elect a different kind of leader,” said Sharon Hewitt, a state senator, in an interview in Slidell, La. Emily Kask for The New York Times“I’m in it for the people — I’m not in it for any political party,” said Mr. Lundy, speaking to a reporter as he drove to spend time eating lamb and boudin, a Cajun sausage, with farmers in Elton, west of New Orleans. It is unclear, however, whether enough voters will accept his deep Christian nationalism or his medical skepticism.As the leading Democratic candidate, Mr. Wilson is favored to make the runoff, with multiple polls showing him in second place. Should he defy the polls, he would be the first Black candidate elected statewide in 150 years.He has emphasized his long experience working with both parties, particularly in the transportation department.“The leadership that I can provide can tamp down the extremism that only satisfies a very small portion of our state, either on the far, far left or the far, far right,” Mr. Wilson said in an interview. “That’s where the sweet spot of government is supposed to be — satisfying the masses.”At an event hosted by the Louisiana AFL-CIO in Gonzales, west of New Orleans, concerns about Mr. Landry’s views resonated with several union workers gathered to hear Mr. Wilson speak.“The next four years could be the rest of our lives,” said Sean Clouatre, 48, a Democrat and a local alderman in the Village of French Settlement. “Because of the policies they could pass and implement — it’s always harder to take them out than it is to implement them.”Mr. Landry’s fellow Republicans in the race have struggled to carve out a distinct identity.“We expected the race to be a little bit more on policy and issues,” Ms. Hewitt said. Stories of her time spent navigating the male-dominated oil and energy industries — including showering in a bathing suit on an oil rig because of a lack of doors — have resonated with some women on the campaign trail, she said.Ms. Hewitt was among those who was irked early on by the state party’s unusually speedy endorsement of Mr. Landry. Their frustration was later exacerbated by his hefty fund-raising hauls and unwillingness to participate in most candidate forums.John Schroder, the state treasurer, in the first televised debate of the Louisiana governor’s race in September.Pool photo by Sophia GermerSupporters of Mr. Landry in Monroe.Emily Kask for The New York Times“I’m trying to say you can be a conservative, but at the same time be wanting to bring people together,” said Mr. Waguespack, who has highlighted his time as the chief executive of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, rather than his years as a top aide to Governor Jindal, who quickly became unpopular as he made a failed run for president.He added, “Bringing people together is a good thing, not a weakness.”As attorney general, Mr. Landry has honed a confrontational approach, at one point suing a reporter for requesting public records related to a sexual harassment investigation into one of his aides. After a court hearing on Louisiana’s abortion law, one of the strictest in the nation, Mr. Landry said that critics could leave the state.That combative spirit has earned him support from staunch Republicans, who cheered his willingness to challenge both Mr. Edwards and the Biden administration over coronavirus vaccine mandates. He also won support for his sweeping promises to address crime and prioritize parents’ rights in education, as well as for other positions that have motivated the Republican base.“Jeff was actually fighting for us,” Kim Cutforth, a 64-year-old retiree, said of Mr. Landry’s opposition to pandemic mandates, as she waited for him to appear at a Baton Rouge restaurant on Thursday. “I loved him for it.”The other Republican candidates, she added, should “just go — let Jeff be the governor.”At his stop in Monroe, in the state’s north, he brushed off criticism that many of his stances could be too extreme for the state.Noting that Louisiana’s population has suffered one of the biggest declines in the nation, he added, “we have a structural problem here in the state, and I believe on those issues I am the most qualified person.” More

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      House speaker contender Steve Scalise reportedly said he was ‘David Duke without the baggage’

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      Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who some in his party reportedly want to elect as speaker of the US House of Representatives after the stunning and historic removal of Kevin McCarthy, was once reported to have called himself “David Duke without the baggage”.Duke, 73, is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, an avowed white supremacist who has run for Louisiana governor, the US House and Senate and for president and who in 2003 was sentenced to 15 months in jail for mail and tax fraud.Scalise, now 57, was elected to Congress in 2008. He became Republican House whip in 2014 and was elected majority leader in 2022, as a hardline conservative acceptable to the far right of his party, which has now successfully rebelled against McCarthy.Ahead of McCarthy’s removal, Scalise implored his fellow Republicans “to keep doing this work that we were sent to do” rather than focus on ejecting the speaker.“This isn’t the time to slow that process down,” said Scalise, denying interest in the speakership.Immediately after the vote to remove McCarthy, however, the ringleader of the motion to vacate, Matt Gaetz of Florida, used his first remarks to say Scalise would be “a phenomenal speaker”. He also said Tom Emmer of Minnesota or Tom Cole of Oklahoma might be good choices.The speakership may offer Scalise a tempting prize: if he is elevated into the role, he will become the highest-ranking member of Congress ever to come from Louisiana.His fellow Louisianan, Duke, last made national headlines when he supported Donald Trump for president in 2016 – support Trump was slow to disavow.Two years before that, Scalise ran into controversy, and his remark about Duke surfaced, after a blogger revealed Scalise’s attendance at a white supremacist conference organised by Duke in 2002.Scalise, whose district includes a large suburban area of New Orleans, said he had been seeking “support for legislation that focused on cutting wasteful state spending, eliminating government corruption and stopping tax hikes”, but “wholeheartedly condemn[ed]” the views of the group concerned.He also said attending the conference “was a mistake I regret”, as he “emphatically oppose[d] the divisive racial and religious views that groups like these hold”.Citing his Catholicism, Scalise said “these groups hold views that are vehemently opposed to my own personal faith, and I reject that kind of hateful bigotry. Those who know me best know I have always been passionate about helping, serving and fighting for every family that I represent. And I will continue to do so.”Duke, however, told the Washington Post: “Scalise would communicate a lot with my campaign manager, Kenny Knight. That is why he was invited and why he would come. Kenny knew Scalise, Scalise knew Kenny. They were friendly.”That wasn’t the end of it. The controversy deepened when Stephanie Grace, a Louisiana politics reporter and columnist, told the New York Times that at the start of Scalise’s legislative career, while “explaining his politics”, he told her “he was like David Duke without the baggage”.Grace said she thought Scalise had “meant he supported the same policy ideas as David Duke, but he wasn’t David Duke, that he didn’t have the same feelings about certain people as David Duke did”.Scalise did not comment on Grace’s remarks. But Chuck Kleckley, the Republican speaker of the Louisiana state house at the time, told the paper comparisons between Scalise and the Klan leader were “not fair to Steve at all”.Nonetheless, the Duke controversy has followed Scalise throughout a career in Republican leadership which has seen him survive being seriously wounded in a mass shooting at congressional baseball practice, in 2017; become one of five Louisiana Congress members to vote against certifying some election results hours after the deadly Capitol attack of 6 January 2021; become majority leader in 2022; and, in August this year, announce a cancer diagnosis.The 2017 shooting was an assassination attempt. The gunman, a leftist extremist who was killed by law enforcement, legally bought the rifle used to shoot Scalise and three others despite a history of run-ins with police.Despite that, through legislation he has sponsored and co-sponsored, Scalise has staunchly advocated to keep guns as accessible to the public as possible, citing the right to bear arms enshrined in the US constitution’s second amendment.In the aftermath of his own shooting, Scalise told reporters: “I was a strong supporter of the second amendment before the shooting and, frankly, as ardent as ever after the shooting in part because I was saved by people who had guns.”Last month, discussing his recent diagnosis of multiple myeloma, Scalise said aggressive treatment meant his outlook was improving.Should Scalise eventually secure the speaker’s gavel, he will surpass the New Orleans Democrat Hale Boggs as the most powerful member of Congress ever to come from the state. Boggs was House majority leader before his plane disappeared over Alaska in 1972. More