Congratulations, Governor Landry

A few weeks back the Louisiana House attempted a minor coup. (They seem to do this a lot.) I'm not sure they've picked the ideal figurehead, though.

The Louisiana House Appropriations Committee voted 17-6 Monday (May 9) for a proposal that would give Attorney General Jeff Landry power over his own budget -- taking that oversight away from Gov. John Bel Edwards.

The measure passed on a mostly partisan vote. It still has to go to the House floor -- and then the state Senate -- for approval.

"We don't support the bill," Edwards said at a press appearance in Baton Rouge Monday. "I don't think it will become law."

Landry also would have been granted extraordinary powers to enforce the absurd "sanctuary cities" bill that just went down in flames this week.

Nonetheless,  Governor Landry is proceding just as though the coup had gone according to plan.

Attorney General Jeff Landry believes that Gov. John Bel Edwards' executive order protecting LGBT state workers and government contractors from discrimination cannot be legally enforced.

"The order has no binding legal effect," reads the eight-page opinion issued Wednesday (May 25) by Landry's office. "The Governor's constitutionally valid function is to see that the laws are faithfully executed and enforced, not to make any of the laws." 

The opinion doesn't do much on its own. Landry can't declare Edwards' executive order null and void simply by releasing his opinion. But it could be used as the basis for a lawsuit to challenge the legality of the protections Edwards extended to the LGBT community.

I already miss Governor Kennedy.