Not to put too fine a point on it but...

 They're messing with you. 

GOP donors Lane Grigsby and Boysie Bollinger aren't concerned about the restrictions placed on the constitutional convention in the enabling legislation passed by the House.

They don't think they're enforceable, per @LaPoliticsNow. #lalege #lagov pic.twitter.com/yUoG9J87nC

— Julie O'Donoghue (@JSODonoghue) May 10, 2024

Ghouls and goblins

Governor-elect Landry's transition team is populated with all of the infamous figures you might expect to see. You've got your Grigsbys and your Bollingers and whatnot. There are other things you might expect.  An oil company lawyer will chair the Coast & Environment committee, a charter school guy will chair a K-12 education group.  I also see there's a committee chaired by Gray Stream. That's an interesting character we highlighted last month as well. 

Lane Grigsby will be in charge of something called a "Constitutional Reform" committee which is itself a whole 'nother can of worms we've been trying not to have to open for quite some time, primarily because of some issues we brought up on election night. 

Anyway, I'm linking back to old posts here because we're about to get swallowed up by some monsters that I, like a lot of people, have been warning about for a long time. You might say we're practically haunted. Not sure what anyone can do about it now. After all, the exorcist was two governors ago.

Return of the Mack

The Republican caucus has voted to endorse Rep Sherman Mack to become the next Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives. That doesn't necessarily mean he will become Speaker, though. 39 Republicans voted to endorse him. But he will need 53 votes when the full House decides the matter in January. And there are other candidates.

Republicans came to Baton Rouge for a delegation meeting that was supposed to start at 9:30 a.m., but haggling over the endorsement vote delayed the start time. Mack and Schexnayder were among the candidates that gave presentations before a question-and-answer session, and Mack won 39 votes, which were cast by ballot. That was the exact number he needed to win the endorsement, as it required a two-thirds vote of those present. (Clay) Schexnayder won 17 votes, while Chalmette Republican Rep. Ray Garofalo won one vote.

“I would hope all the Republicans would get behind Sherman Mack now that he has been selected as the Republican delegation nominee,” said state Rep. Jack McFarland, of Jonesboro and one-time speaker candidate who got behind Mack in recent weeks. “That’s the purpose of having that vote.”

If Shexnayder retains his support that would mean the votes of Democratic House members will come into play. This week, John Kennedy and Jeff Landry have been urging the Republican members not to let this happen although it's difficult to imagine it will make much of a difference.  Should the speakership go to Mack or to Shexnayder or to Mack or to some compromise candidate in the event of a deadlock, the Republican agenda is pretty clear. And they all seem to be on the same page more or less. However it is worth noting that Mack is thought by the "Kingmaker" to be somewhat more on that page.

Mack, the preferred candidate of influential GOP donor Lane Grigsby, had emerged as one of two front-runners for the top post in the House, along with state Rep. Clay Schexnayder, of Gonzales. The two both offered up the exact same policy priority, tort reform, a long-held Republican priority that has recently evoked heated battles in the Legislature and in elections.

Pro-business groups and trial attorneys, who are on opposite sides of the issue, poured millions into the governor’s race and legislative elections this year. Business groups were generally successful in electing favorable lawmakers, while Edwards, a Democrat with big support from attorneys, won the governor’s race over Mack’s preferred candidate, Eddie Rispone.

Don't let John Bel's narrow escape fool you. This election was a major right wing landslide and the new legislature is going to reflect that. Whoever the new speaker is, that person's top priority will be "tort reform." Which means they will work to protect corporate entities such as polluting chemical companies or labor abusive contractors such as Citadel Builders from facing any consequences for their crimes.

Which points us to one more reason why Mack might have distinguished himself as the most Republican of this batch of Republicans. Recall that during the previous term, Mack was among the few holdouts agitating against and watering down the set of bipartisan criminal justice reforms the legislature eventually passed. So he's keen on seeing to it that the legal system punishes somebody.  But only certain somebodies.

"I don't exactly have the authority to do that"

Not exactly, says Lane Grigsby.  But we all get the idea.

Grigsby said he didn't want to see the seat go to the Democratic candidate, so sought a solution that wouldn't split the Republican vote.

“I’m not offering (Foil) a judgeship,” Grigsby said. “I can’t. I don’t exactly have the authority to do that. What I’m saying is 'If you make a sacrifice for the state of Louisiana, I’ll make sure that sacrifice is recognized.'”

Foil has declined to drop out of the race, and Carter, whom Grigsby supports, has also indicated he will stay in.

Asked whether he thought his offer to Foil was illegal, Grigsby said it was not a quid pro quo because he hasn’t spoken to Foil directly. “I’ve just put an offer on the table and it’s public,” he said.

Sternberg says this is "VERY DIFFERENT" from offering cash (and a job) to a candidate for dropping out. But, again, you get the idea.  Let's just Foil was asked to take a Lane check and leave it at that.

We're not one-at-a-timin' here we're mass communicatin'

Retail politics is dead: Nobody goes outside to do any old timey campaigning anymore. Everything is all about buying a bunch of Facebook ads now.

Unless it isn't:  Turns out, John Bel Edwards is going around to all these churches and festivals and doing old timey campaing stuff for months and months.

What's funny about that first article is, despite its premise, there's plenty of reporting in there about candidates doing the regular backslapping with the folks on the festival circuit. But we're told they're doing it less than they used to and instead they, especially the Republicans, are relying more on TV ads and social media than they had in the past.

It's easy to make the mistake that this is all a natural consequence of advancing communications technology.  But I think that needs to be interrogated a bit further.  Yes, social media has changed the delivery system, but the actual leap in emphasis from in-person campaigning to electronic mass propaganda arrived a couple generations ago with the advent of TV and radio.  Pop culture critics have famously been lamenting its effect on politics since at least the Nixon/Kennedy debates.  And, while it is true that internet enabled media reaches more people than it did, say, a decade ago, a lot of people were online back then too.   (This stupid stupid Yellow Blog has been in publication since 2003!) We haven't suddenly woken up to a new era in political media this year.  Something else is going on.

A host of political action committees for various interests are pouring millions of dollars into the state to sway the outcome. Contributions given directly to candidates are limited by law. But Super PACs and political foundations are allowed to raise unlimited sums of money. Though the Super PACs can't coordinate directly with the campaigns, they do advocate, often harshly, on behalf of their favored candidates' causes and against those of their opponents.

Edwards, who is seeking re-election, faces two Republicans – U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham, of Alto, and Baton Rouge millionaire contractor Eddie Rispone – in the Oct. 12 open primary. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the ballots, the top two vote-getters will meet again in a November runoff.

Two major players in the fall campaigns are the Republican Governors Association, through its Right Direction PAC, and the Democratic Governors Association, which has already funneled at least half a million dollars into a Super PAC affiliated with the incumbent governor.

Some of the organizations involved, often called "dark money groups," are not required to disclose their donors — and don't — making it unclear who exactly is paying to influence the election.

This isn't the first Louisiana Governor's race of the post-Citizen's United era.  But this year's contest does seem to be attracting more "dark money" than ever before.  The article referenced above is from qualifying week. It names some PACs that were around last time along with a couple of newer ones. Since then we've learned about a few more. It doesn't give us any numbers on Lane Grigsby's Truth In Politics PAC. We do know Lane is close with Eddie Rispone, though.  Anyway, it's not really how much money is aligned with each candidate we're concerned with right now but rather how it tends to get deployed.

PAC money doesn't help get your candidate out among the folks as easily as it gets a message out over the wires. Which is why it feels to some as though the campaigns have moved off of the fairgrounds and onto Facebook. Which is why when the Republicans "brought out the big guns" a lot of the fire came in the form of tweets from the President and an appearance from his son at an event designed to be amplified over Facebook. Trump Sr. will also appear at a rally on Friday. But, again, even that is really intended for a TV and social media audience.

But, sometimes, as the second story linked at the top of this post indicates, that is not always the case. There we find John Bel the Democratic Governor out and about doing the one-at-a-time business.

For months, just as he did four years ago, Edwards has been making stops throughout Louisiana that are aimed specifically at black voters. In late July, he visited four black churches over two days in Lafayette and attended a banquet celebrating Lloyd Joiner Jr.’s 40th year as the pastor at Progressive Baptist Church also in Lafayette.

“People respected the fact that he was engaged,” said state Sen. Gerald Boudreaux, D-Lafayette, who accompanied him at some of the stops.

On Aug. 11, Edwards visited True Vine Baptist Church in Alexandria, accompanied by Mayor Hall, and then three other black churches.

On Aug. 18, Edwards visited four black churches in Monroe accompanied by state Rep. Katrina Jackson, D-Monroe.

On Aug. 31, he and state Rep. Dustin Miller, D-Opelousas, played the rub-board alongside Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas at the Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival before a large African-American crowd.

Accompanied by state Rep. Kenny Cox, D-Mansfield, Edwards stopped in Natchitoches on Sept. 12 to speak to 25-30 African-American ministers and to a predominately black crowd at the Ben D. Johnson Educational Center.

Two days earlier, he attended a dinner for the NAACP’s Shreveport chapter.

On Sept. 29, Edwards attended Gloryland Baptist Church accompanied by East Baton Rouge Metro Councilwoman Erika Green.

Along the way, Edwards has stopped at popular black-owned restaurants – Laura’s 2 Next Generation in Lafayette, the Legacy Café in Natchitoches, Pamela’s Bayou in a Bowl in Alexandria and Dooky Chase’s in New Orleans.

Meanwhile Lane Grigsby the Republican megadonor is trying to move the same constituency but using a different tactic.

Aside from Truth in Politics’ ad, Grigsby is also looking for other ways to stop Edwards from winning reelection. Last month, he gave $100,000 to a political organization called Movement for Change that is running ads on a host of African American radio stations throughout the state in support of Omar Dantzler, the only black candidate in the race. Dantzler, of Hammond, is also the only other Democrat in the race besides Edwards, though he is far less known and is polling in the low single digits.

One is out pressing flesh to try and counter what the other can do by just pressing a button. Wonder which will be enough? Watch John Bel's margin of 50% vs Dantzler's numbers on Saturday to find out.

Clearly, Donald Trump is out to crush the Rispone campaign

Prominent Republican donor and fundraiser Lane Grigsby has some kind of IRS problem on his hands.

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Cajun Industries founder and Chairman Emeritus Lane Grigsby and his wife for more than $750,000 for an income tax refund the government says the Grisbys were not entitled to receive.

According to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, the refund was issued for the 2013 tax year and was based on more than $1.34 million in research and development tax credits Cajun claimed for the year.

Grigsby is a close associate of Gubernatorial candidate Eddie Rispone. In fact, you might say he's been with the Rispone campaign from the beginning. 

Rispone said he entered the race after not being able to sleep at night. A devout Catholic, he believes God was waking up to tell him to run against Edwards. He and Grigsby had a tough time finding someone to take on Edwards. Grigsby said they had been approaching potential candidates for two years, and they couldn’t find someone they considered a worthy challenger. So Rispone decided to run himself.

Turns out the Lord works in mysterious ways, though.  If it really is He who inspired Eddie to run in the first place, then why strike at his closest friend and ally at this critical moment? Unless, of course, the test issues not from God but perhaps instead from The Enemy. 

Grigsby suggests the IRS is overreaching and that he may be targeted because of his outspoken, conservative political views, noting that other partners in his business also received the R&D credits for 2013 and haven’t gotten any push back for it.

“It’s typical of the way our government abuses its citizens,” he says. “I know the IRS has been used against other conservative people. I know other people who got this same credit and theirs was allowed. Why was mine stopped? Why me? Maybe because I do raise my mouth a little too loud.”

I dunno, Lane, maybe those of us called to do the Lord's work might think to go about it with a little more humility.  In any case are we sure we want to be out here implying that the Trump Administration is under the influence of Satanic forces.  We're not saying you're necessarily off track in that case, but it does seem like a radical departure from the campaign strategy thus far.