If you want to campaign on God, country and patriotism, the usual stuff, don’t run for secretary of state in Louisiana.

"A change of scenery," Gov. John Bel Edwards called it, to contemplate the "end of the road" for the Legislature that has refused to deal with the "fiscal cliff."

In 1950, Baton Rouge's consolidation of city and parish government was considered all the rage in progressive circles, a way to make public services more efficient and provide a broader tax base. Lafayette government made the same decision in 1996.

There's no inherent contradiction between being nice and being persistent, but the combination of the two words used most often to describe urban planner Elizabeth "Boo" Thomas understate the case.

Few politicians do not enjoy attention, and Mitch Landrieu has been getting a lot as he winds up eight years as mayor of New Orleans. It has been an era of turnaround for the city, flooded after Hurricane Katrina.

As leader of the state House Republicans, state Rep. Lance Harris of Alexandria is often at odds with Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, and even with Jay Dardenne, the Republican budget officer for the state.

For the economic analysts, the location of a giant new Formosa plant in St. James Parish, promising 1,200 permanent jobs, is a function of objective factors. There is the Mississippi River and Louisiana’s network of pipelines, the neighboring petr…

It’s all conservative all the time, with Gov. John Bel Edwards himself joining in the avid discussion of work requirements for Medicaid recipients, almost all of whom are elderly, disabled or children.

What do Republican legislative leaders want?

For the economic analysts, location of a giant new Formosa plant in St. James Parish, promising 1,200 permanent jobs, is a function of objective factors. There is the Mississippi River and Louisiana’s network of pipelines, the neighboring petroche…

Of the frauds making the rounds of the State Capitol, the notion of a fresh start on a new Louisiana Constitution is one of the most durable.

When the Pilgrims found dry land at Plymouth Rock, the outcasts had to start the political thing from scratch. After all, as Puritans, they were dissenters, the second-class citizens of Britain, ineligible for most offices and functions in society.

With the Louisiana Legislature tied in partisan knots over the budget, could things be worse?

With party divisions entangling the Legislature in the State Capitol, the body's approval ratings have to be in the single digits, and that is particularly annoying to state senators, who feel dragged down by the collisions over budget and taxes i…

Last week, Jay Dardenne’s long and distinguished career was one of those featured in a video for his induction into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame, including his early activity as a Republican candidate and then officeholder.

The Daily State-Times of Baton Rouge bannered the news in 1909: “Five Million Dollar Company to Build Two Million Dollar Plant Here.”

Contrary to the popular image of the legendary leader during the Great Depression and the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a politician who could be shiftier than Bill Clinton, more unreliable than Donald Trump and more brutal…

A famous and very mistaken assessment of a politician was made by columnist Walter Lippmann, who wrote before the 1932 election that Franklin D. Roosevelt was a pleasant man without apparent qualifications who very much wanted to be president.

A spokesman for Ohio’s state treasurer, Josh Mandel, wowed the crowd at the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry with a demonstration of Mandel’s pet project: the Ohio Checkbook.

After a decade of irresponsible budgeting and recurring crises, Gov. John Bel Edwards has won the argument at the State Capitol with one sentence: "This is entirely a self-inflicted wound."

When John Kirwan was recruited from the Cleveland Clinic, one of the premier medical institutions in the world, he came to Louisiana just in time for a doomsday budget — exactly the kind of problem that the new head of LSU's Pennington Biomedical …

With the decision of state officials to borrow $600 million from future federal highway revenues to jump-start three big projects, the allocation of more than half the money to Baton Rouge's interstate system shows how big the capital city's conge…

Officially, governors never do such things as trading state projects for votes in the Legislature. That would be wrong.

Even in the hothouse atmosphere of the Louisiana State Capitol, and with a new legislative session weeks away at least, tempers are getting short.

Former Gov. Edwin Edwards, at 90, has many times demonstrated the wisdom of one of his favorite sayings, a Chinese proverb: Wait by the river long enough, you’ll see the bodies of your enemies float by.

With two out of three respondents approving of John Bel Edwards’ performance in office, surely it was a happy Christmas at the Governor’s Mansion.

After much huffing and puffing to little purpose, the House GOP folded its poor hand in a showdown in the State Capitol over managed-care contracts for Medicaid.

Pity the poor dealmakers, for Congress is no longer a happy hunting ground.

When you talk about the State Capitol becoming as bad as the nation's Capitol for wrangling, add to the list of similarities a growing disdain for the referees, particularly from the GOP coaches at both levels of the game.

In politics, as in sports, an ugly win is still a W. And an L is still an L, which is where Cameron Henry of Metairie appears to be leading the House GOP caucus. Again.

"He's one confused politician." Or John N. Kennedy was so portrayed, in a sharp commercial against him in the 2008 race for U.S. Senate. Kennedy, then a Republican, had run in 2004 as a Democrat, and probably not the most centrist Democrat in that…

The official position of LSU is that the renaming of streets has nothing to do with the debate over Confederate memorials, even if the street in question is the one in front of the much-used Student Union building.

With due regard for the independence and vast powers of the Metropolitan Council of East Baton Rouge Parish, maybe there are lessons they could learn about getting their ducks in a row when it comes to taxes.

If you were less than riveted by the spreadsheets about recidivism rates from the Pew Institute, presented at the lengthy meetings over the last 18 months or so of the Justice Reinvestment Task Force, things might get even more tedious if the disc…