Jeff Landry needs a new gimmick

This credit card thing is not panning out for him politically so it is time to move on. 

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has been cleared of the possibility of criminal charges associated with her use of a city-issued credit card when she was a City Council member. The issue first arose during her campaign for mayor last year.

Attorney General Jeff Landry's office released a statement Wednesday (Oct. 17) saying the mayor has been cleared of any charges after an investigation that Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro recused himself from during the campaign. Landry, a Republican who has at times cast himself as a political opponent of New Orleans interests, praised Cantrell for her cooperation.

This comes relatively quickly on the heels of a legislative auditor's report that didn't exactly absolve Cantrell and other City Councilmembers of wrongdoing.  But it did kind of excuse them all from prosecution on account of the lax or confusing policies they were operating under.  We've argued previously that there's actually plenty to look into with regard to all of them and Cantrell in particular. But no investigating authority was ever serious about upsetting any apple carts that might also benefit political allies of theirs. More than anything this is a case of everybody does it therefore it must be okay.

Jeff Landry certainly wasn't interested in getting anything out of it besides attention and, with that, a leg up in next year's gubernatorial race. But since the story doesn't have the juice he hoped it would, it's time to let it die.

Landry had been playing a similar game with this November's ballot.  Amendment 2 which, if passed, would require unanimous verdicts for convictions in criminal jury trials. Jeff appears to have calculated there were political points for the taking for the only figure of any prominence to publicly oppose the amendment.  But since the money and momentum has steadily built toward a statewide bipartisan consensus in favor of the amendment, it's looking more and more like he'll have to abandon that gambit as well.

Landry has been trying to establish himself as the most serious challenger to John Bel Edwards. But the more these little schemes of his fail to pan out, the more likely it becomes that other Republicans will enter the race. He's running out of time and ideas.  Wonder what he might try next. How about state backed voter suppression. Certainly sounds like him.