In the Louisiana Republican Party’s ideal world, last week would have marked a show of strength by the two candidates who are trying to turn Democrat John Bel Edwards into a one-term governor. That’s when reports outlining how much money U.S. Rep.…
It’s fair to ask why New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell raised an impressive $461,000 in campaign funds in 2018, three years before she’ll face voters again.
By basically admitting that it’s just not feasible to rewind the clock and restart the debate over whether Entergy New Orleans should be able to build a new power plant, the New Orleans City Council has made it official. The crowd-pleasing part of…
Each Carnival season is different, but for those who traffic in the topical, there are a few evergreen subjects. They include the state of New Orleans’ streets, and drainage system, and police department, as well as the state of the nation — speci…
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, of Jefferson Parish, applauded President Donald Trump for signing the new funding bill that averts a second government shutdown in as many months.
When Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, her approval ratings hovered in the mid-60s, higher than either President Barack Obama’s or Vice President Joe Biden’s. By well into the slog of the 2016 presidential run, her polls numbers had dropped …
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Just before Jefferson Parish Councilwoman Cynthia Lee-Sheng formally kicked off her campaign to lead the parish Tuesday night, former Parish President and current candidate John Young sent around a press release.
Mitch Landrieu said no, or probably not, anyway.
It would be tempting to say that the Louisiana Board of Ethics hasn’t kept up with the times, but that would be giving the panel too much credit. By banning a Baton Rouge legislative hopeful from using her campaign money to pay for child care expe…
New York Times opinion writer David Leonhardt floated an interesting proposal last week, based on two very current, very real-world examples: What if, as a condition of removing somebody from public office, that person’s replacement should come fr…
Nigeria is about to elect a new president. And believe it or not, there’s a local angle to the story.
Maybe it was all those State of the Union bingo cards that popped up on the Internet this week — you know, where people try to guess ahead of time whether President Donald Trump will mention the wall, or congratulate the (mostly Democratic) women …
Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s all-but announcement that he’s not running for president next year doesn’t just deprive Louisiana of a native son in the race. It pretty much takes the region out of play.
With so many other Democrats moving forward while he’s hung back, it’s been looking for a while as if former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is taking himself out of contention for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination. Or out-ish, anyway.
Whenever a president delivers a State of the Union address, there are always some topics of particular local interest mixed in with all the national issues. And sure enough, President Donald Trump reportedly plans to make a big splash at Tuesday n…
In anticipation of Tuesday night’s delayed State of the Union address, the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts is promoting a video of four American mayors delving into the connection between old, tired infrastructure and increased flooding. Appearing…
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy has landed a coveted speaking spot at next month’s satirical Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, and it’s no wonder. Kennedy’s constant quips, often in response to serious policy questions, may not exactly enlighten, but the…
Back in the day, way before he headed off to West Point, law school, the Louisiana Legislature and ultimately the Governor’s Mansion, John Bel Edwards was a pitcher for Amite High School’s baseball team.
The State of the Union doesn’t quite fall on Groundhog Day, but it might feel that way to former Gov. Bobby Jindal. Every year around this time, it seems, Jindal’s name gets dragged out of the dustbins of history and propped up as a cautionary tale.
House Speaker Taylor Barras owes his title to the fact that he’s not Cameron Henry, the Metairie state representative who once wanted the job.
Anyone who follows the great climate change debate nationally has surely picked up on a profound disconnect: Among the areas where politicians are the least likely to acknowledge the crisis and support action to confront it are those that are most…
The positioning ahead of next year’s Democratic presidential race is getting downright frenetic, but some things are starting to become clear.
Former U.S. Sen. David Vitter’s a smart guy, and I’m sure he’s pretty good at his new lobbying career. One would guess so, considering that his assignment as part of a high-powered, highly paid team out to end sanctions on companies associated wit…
That 35-day fiasco our country just endured? It’s squarely on President Donald Trump.
After the past couple of weeks, you’ve got to wonder whether anyone out there is still underestimating the power of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In 2015, then-state Rep. John Bel Edwards stunned the Louisiana political world by walloping U.S. Sen. David Vitter, considered at the time to be Louisiana’s most strategically gifted Republican and a man who’d never before lost an election.
Remember what happened in Florida the year before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged Louisiana?
Even the people who don’t like him tend to acknowledge that former U.S. Sen. David Vitter has many talents. One of them is an ability to reinvent himself.
When notoriously colorful Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee died in 2007, he was replaced by his handpicked top aide, Newell Normand, whom many viewed as like a son to the late sheriff.
Look, I saw the game too, and am as mad as anyone about the refs’ blown call. I’m heartbroken for all the fans who supported the Saints through what, until Sunday, felt like a charmed season, and also for so many players who gave their all. For al…
Gov. John Bel Edwards’ plan to seek reelection never even qualified as the state’s worst-kept secret. He’s been talking openly about his intention for as long as I can remember.
Color me unimpressed with politicians who promise not to take their salaries.
Hey, Louisiana Republican Party, how’s that uniting-behind-a-single-gubernatorial-candidate thing going?
A little less than a year ago, the mayor of Minneapolis recorded a video welcoming the Super Bowl contenders to town. It was, as CBS Sports put it, awkward.
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy doesn’t often break with the Trump administration, so it’s noteworthy when he does. One of those occasions came Wednesday, when Kennedy joined with Democrats and 10 fellow Republicans in opposing an administration move to li…
Plenty of people are feeling the effects of the partial government shutdown now. There are the 800,000 federal workers who aren’t getting paid, including many who are being forced to show up to work anyway. There are people who rely on government …
Kind of like a certain other chief executive making news these days, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell can be a go-with-her-gut sort of politician.
Gov. John McKeithen is remembered as the politician who built the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. There’s a statue of him commemorating the achievement just outside the downtown New Orleans stadium.
After word got out that President Donald Trump might tap into hard-won disaster prevention money slated for Louisiana in order to build his border wall, the state’s congressional delegation went to work lobbying the administration to keep its hand…
This much is beyond dispute: The U.S. Senate voted to keep the government open without funding for President Donald Trump’s border wall. So did the House.
It’s been two years, and we’re still waiting for Louisiana’s congressional Republicans to show a little independence, to act as if they work for a co-equal branch of government that’s actually supposed to provide checks and balances on the presidency.
Most new mayors see themselves as disrupters, so it speaks volumes about outgoing New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Michael Harrison that LaToya Cantrell didn’t talk much about disrupting NOPD during her 2017 campaign for mayor.
Morning Consult, the national polling firm that issues quarterly reports on the popularity of governors and senators, is out with its latest numbers today. And the results shed some interesting light on Louisiana’s governor race, and one longtime …
The first Louisiana gubernatorial election I ever covered was in 1995. I was assigned to follow a guy named Quentin Dastugue, a smart, respected lawmaker from Jefferson Parish who went with a strategy of snagging the official Republican Party endo…
During the 2017 New Orleans mayoral election, eventual winner LaToya Cantrell said that, if elected, she’d conduct a national search for a police superintendent. So did her opponents. But none of them sounded like their hearts were in it.
The Biden watch is on. And that means the Landrieu watch may or may not be far behind.
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise lost his title of House majority whip last week, along with the power that comes with it. One more price the Jefferson Parish Republican paid after the Democrats retook control of the chamber is the loss of his former post’…
Elizabeth Warren is in. Amy Klobuchar says she’s close to a decision. Sherrod Brown is openly discussing the possibility. And these three U.S. Senators, from Massachusetts, Minnesota and Ohio, respectively, are just the tip of what could be a very…
Three states are set to elect governors in 2019, and the first thing to know about them is that they’re not a random sample.
Louisiana is used to lagging behind other states, but on one key measure, it started the new year by falling even further behind. More specifically, the state’s lowest-paid workers did.