House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, Louisiana’s highest-ranking member of Congress since the late Hale Boggs, didn’t take long to climb to the top of the House Republican establishment. A key step along the way was his term as chairman of the Repub…

It turns out that the “indispensable man” theory of governing is pretty popular around the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office.

A periodic nationwide survey of how people in each state feel about their elected leaders may not be the most precise measure, but it usually makes for interesting reading. The latest gubernatorial roundup from Morning Consult, based on polling co…

Congressional authorization of the the National Flood Insurance Program expires at the end of July, and some lawmakers are pushing a four-month extension that would keep the program going until November 30. 

As he dips his toe into national politics, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is positioning himself on the more moderate side of the great Democratic Party divide.

The last time a Louisiana politician eyed the big stage, there was no doubt as to what he wanted and how he planned to get it. Former Gov. Bobby Jindal barely bothered to conceal his presidential hopes, and pursued hard-right policies that were un…

Most politicians wait until they get elected to break their first promise.

Putting someone to death is sobering business.

Qualifying for the fall elections hasn’t ended yet, but one of the season’s key questions has already been settled.

Sal Perricone, the tough-talking former federal prosecutor whose insatiable need to go online and comment on his office’s cases triggered an epic scandal, should have known that “his actions had the potential to wreak havoc,” the state attorney di…

Louisiana has a long history of letting political candidates appear on the ballot as they wish, as long as their chosen nicknames don’t offend.

Some of Louisiana’s Republican members of Congress have been kind of squirrely ever since President Donald Trump openly questioned the evidence gathered by American intelligence agencies about Russian interference in the 2016 election while appear…

Monday morning, as President Donald Trump was embarking on his instantly infamous encounter with Russian president Vladimir Putin, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise went on Twitter to insist that Trump was working “from a position of American stre…

I went shopping over the weekend, checked my receipts and saw that I was charged 4.45 percent of the price of my purchases in sales tax. Had I purchased the same items a month ago, I would have been charged 5 percent.

It’s way too early to handicap this fall’s special election for secretary of state, but by the time qualifying closes this week, one candidate will be able to claim a major victory just by making it to the starting line.

The election fever that’s spreading across the country this year hasn’t hit Louisiana yet, and odds are that it won’t.

If House Majority Whip Steve Scalise hadn’t already announced that he won’t challenge John Bel Edwards for governor next year, his fundraising activities would have told the same story. His latest numbers, released Friday morning, have national am…

So let me get this straight.

Former U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite Jr. confirmed this week that he’s moving to Philadelphia, thus ending, or at least deferring, some political dreams.

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy said he had some tough words for the Russian officials during an all-GOP July 4 week congressional visit in advance of President Donald Trump’s hugely controversial meeting with Vladimir Putin.

If New Orleans native Amy Coney Barrett is feeling a little down this morning after being passed over by President Donald Trump for a U.S. Supreme Court nomination, she might take comfort in the fact that she’s not alone.

As Gov. John Bel Edwards returns from his summer vacation this week, he faces an unfamiliar landscape. Now that lawmakers have finally adopted enough revenue to guarantee that vital services won’t be threatened year in and year out, the budget cri…

There’s a reason Gov. John Bel Edwards speaks of one of his proudest accomplishments, the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, in terms of how many Louisianans are benefiting.

Pretty much everything in Washington is contentious these days, and that includes many components of the farm bill that passed out of the Senate Thursday and must now be reconciled with a very different House bill. Causing the most rancor is a pro…

The first big headline from this year’s third special legislative session was that lawmakers finally agreed on how to raise enough money to avert deep cuts to higher education and other state-funded services when the new fiscal year begins on Sunday.

When it comes to calling for political civility, Steve Scalise has some standing. The genial House Majority Whip is as partisan as they come, but he’s known for not making things personal. Hence his well-documented interparty friendship with congr…

Now that the great tax compromise of 2018 is on the books, what’s the next act in Louisiana’s never-ending political show?

There, Louisiana Legislature, was that so hard?

Although there’s been considerable debate about who’s really been pulling the strings, Speaker Taylor Barras, R-New Iberia, is the official leader of the state House.

Many national groups hold big meetings in New Orleans every few years, but the American Library Association, which opens its national conference at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Friday with a big-time speech by Michelle Obama, is special.

In a vacuum, “We’re No. 49!” doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment, let alone a rousing rallying cry.

Just when it seemed as if Louisiana’s fall congressional elections would be entirely humdrum, some unexpected drama has suddenly erupted in the fight for the state’s 3rd District.

Given the humanitarian crisis playing out on the country’s southern border and in the locked-down shelters and often far-off foster homes where children ripped from their parents’ arms are being held, it was probably inevitable that political pund…

You’d think lawmakers gathered in Baton Rouge for yet another special session would have a sense of urgency, that they’d want to finally take care of business and go home. After all, the fiscal cliff that they’ve been talking about for more than t…