Louisiana Republicans Consider Changes Following Veto Session
In my nearly three decades of watching and attempting to understand just what goes on in our Louisiana Legislature, I have learned not to be surprised. But the results of the current veto override session actually did surprise me. Despite the fact, that several of my media cohorts predicted the debacle that we just saw unfold in Baton Rouge.
There were two issues, Constitutional Carry and the Transgender Athletes legislation, that I thought for sure had the backing of enough legislators that Governor John Bel Edwards veto would be overridden and the "will of the people" or what I perceived to be the "will of the people" would prevail.
In both cases, Republican leadership in the legislature failed to garner enough support to override the vetoes set down by the Governor. But to me, the puzzling part of the whole issue is this. In both cases, in the regular session of the legislature, there were enough votes to override a gubernatorial veto.
That's right, there were enough politicians already on record offering enough support so that both of these issues could have been overridden in this "historic" veto session. The session is considered historic because it was the first such session ever held in the state under our most recently adopted constitution.
I think the session will go down in history as a total whiff by the Republican leadership. It sure seemed like they had the two issues that were the most troubling to their constituents teed up and ready to prevail but I guess Governor Edwards's charisma? Charm? The threat of pulling pet projects? Was just too much for Republican leadership to bear.
Now, I am far from being a political pundit, but even I can see what this failure in the veto session has done. It has really handed the reigns of power over to John Bel Edwards. Whether or not that's a good or a bad thing, I will leave that to you to decide.
It's pretty obvious the Louisiana Republican Party is seeing what I saw too. They issued a statement yesterday suggesting that Louisiana Speaker of the House Clay Schexnayder could be removed from that position because of the inability of the House to act on the veto overrides.
The statement also mentioned retribution against members of the Democratic Party who voted against the override. Perhaps those members might lose their committee chair status. Of course, that would require Republican leaders to step up to the plate and, well, lead. So far, they haven't demonstrated their ability to do that.