I expected new Gret Stet Goober Jeff Landry to follow the example of the Alabama lege and defy the SCOTUS mandate to draw a Black majority district. I was pleasantly surprised that he compiled with the Milligan ruling. I knew there had to be a catch: Landry did the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Louisiana’s population is 1/3 Black. We used to have 2 majority Black districts but that ended with an earlier round of redistricting; make that Gerrymandering. The state lege squeezed African American neighborhoods in Baton Rouge into the same district with much of New Orleans. It’s a mismatch: the only things Baton Rouge and New Orleans have in common is that they’re in the same state and everyone roots for the Saints. Opinion on the LSU Tigers is divided now that Tulane has a good football program. As the holder of degrees from both universities, all can say is Go, Tigers and Roll, Wave.

The pol who held that Red Stick based seat from 1993-97 is Cleo Fields. Fields is the leading Black Democrat in BR. In addition to that, he’s served multiple terms in the State House and Senate and ran for Governor in 1995. He made the runoff but got smoked by Dem turned GOPer Mike Foster in the general election.

The other main character in the redistricting drama is Republican Congressman Garret Graves whose district vanished in a cloud of redistricting smoke. That’s a lot of smoke, but Louisiana is home to polluting chemical, oil, and gas factories, after all.

Graves was one of KMac’s chief lieutenants in his fights to win and retain the Speakership. Graves stepped on the toes of our old pal Steve Scalise and was among the KMac supporters to torpedo Scalise’s hopes of becoming Speaker. Scalise was not amused, neither was his ally, Jeff Landry.

Graves committed another grave sin in the eyes of Landry: He supported his Jindal administration colleague Stephen Waguespack in the late Gret Stet Goober race. In part, the redistricting was payback for this offense against the wingnut Kingfish wannabe. It may prove that Graves is too politically maladroit to stay in Congress: Landry led the race from stem to stern. Holy nautical imagery, Batman.

That covers the payback aspect of this sordid story. Let’s get back to the unholy alliance between Jeff Landry and Cleo Fields in which another form of payback occurred.

I missed a Picvocate story describing the Landry-Fields cabal until reading Bob Mann’s latest blog post. You might recall Mann as the journalism professor who quit LSU because he expected Landry to come after him, for reasons stated in this post: Stand By Your Mann.

Here’s the money quote from the Picvocate article by crack political reporter Tyler Bridges:

Fields is widely believed by political insiders to have been a valuable asset for Landry’s campaign by working behind the scenes to elect the governor, even while he publicly supported Shawn Wilson, the former Transportation secretary who was the Democratic candidate. The insiders cite the lack of an organized effort to get Black voters to vote for Wilson, a program that Fields spearheaded for John Bel Edwards in the last two governor’s races.”

Fields is a dubious character, and this sordid deal reflects that. I understand working with Landry once he’s Governor, but not covertly sinking the Harvey campaign. Of course, given his experience in the 1995 Governor’s race, Fields knew Harvey was doomed because of his skin color. Ironically, Fields attacked Mary Landrieu who finished 3rd in the 1995 primary for arguing that Fields couldn’t win the general election. One could even call Cleo Fields the Red Stick Machiavelli.

This skullduggery has a happy ending: a Black majority House seat that Sabato’s Crystal Ball has moved from safe Republican to safe Democratic. The piece has a wonderful title that I considered stealing, The Fields Above The Graves: Louisiana 2024 Redistricting. FYI, it was written by Miles Coleman who grew up in New Orleans. It’s a small fucking world, after all.

Garret, who dug his own political grave, insists that he’ll run for reelection in the new Louisiana-6, but a smarter move would be to challenge fellow GOPer Julia Letlow in the Louisiana-5. Since Graves’ lack of political acumen is what landed him in this mess, he may not do so. Schmuck.

This sort of redistricting deal is nothing new. It’s widely believed that my political mentor and former boss Gillis Long made a deal with Edwin Edwards after running third in the 1971 Gret Stet Goober primary. When I asked him about it, Mr. Long denied that there was a deal, he called it an understanding. Whatever you call it, Mr. Long wound up with a district that was liberal enough for him in exchange for endorsing Edwin in the runoff. Unlike Garret Graves, Gillis Long was a helluva smart politician.

It’s unclear how effective Jeff Landry will be as Governor. Given his agenda, I wouldn’t be unhappy with the same sort of ineptitude Team Landry displayed in the late Special Session. Here’s what Adrastos crony Clancy DuBos had to say about that:

Landry’s biggest miscalculation was his apparent belief that he could ram his agenda through both legislative chambers without giving them any advance warning of his intentions.

 

It was more than overreach; it was a Kingfish-style power grab. And it failed.

 

For now, at least, Landry looks more like the Clownfish than the Kingfish. In time, perhaps he’ll learn it’s best just to try to be the governor — and to respect the other two branches of government.”

Yeah, you right, Clancy.

I’m stealing the nickname Clownfish. Here’s hoping the Clownfish’s culture wars initiatives flop as well. I’m less optimistic about that: The GOP has a super-majority in the lege. That’s why we can’t have nice things in the Gret Stet of Louisiana.

The last word goes to Our Mac: