As expected, the map draws Republican Reps. Charles Boustany Jr. and Jeff Landry together in a new district that advantages Boustany.

Read more: New Louisiana map sets up GOP primary battle

According to GOP sources, the new map includes two vertical districts in northern Louisiana, a plan similar to what Republicans had proposed in their map, which failed to pass. The new map would keep boundaries in southern Louisiana the same as suggested in the Democratic plan that failed to pass the state House on Wednesday.

The new map is essentially the bill named for Democratic state Sen. Lydia Jackson, except that the two horizontal districts in northern Louisiana in that version are flipped on their ends.

“It’s not the perfect district for me or for Rodney, but I think it’s something that we can get enough votes to pass,” Rep. John Fleming (R) told Roll Call late Wednesday night, referring to his own political fate and that of Rep. Rodney Alexander (R).

Republicans thought they had agreed on a map that would have left freshman Rep. Jeff Landry (R) without a district in a state that is losing a House seat after reapportionment because of population loss from Hurricane Katrina. But earlier this week, Rep. Charles Boustany (R) switched and threw his support behind the Democratic Jackson plan.

Read more: Republicans Ready to Unveil Compromise Map in Louisiana

This map makes too much sense to ever happen, plus Rep. Charles Boustany’s concern of a challenge from Rep. Jeff Landry will not allow him to relinquish any part of Calcasieu. In fact, truth be told, we already saw early on he would rather cast aside real parts of Acadiana (Acadia Parish) and send us up to Shreveport as long as he can keep all of Calcasieu.  Now, probably after some local pressure, he seems to have flip flopped on Acadia and Jeff Davis, but still is keeping the line in the sand for Calcasieu to remain in his district.

Read more: A Modest Proposal – An “Independent” Congressional Re-districting Map

from a release out of U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany’s office…

US Representative Charles Boustany, Jr. (R-Southwest Louisiana) today commented on the sluggish unemployment numbers released by the US Department of Labor.

“These low job numbers prove America is still struggling toward economic recovery, and President Obama’s stimulus package isn’t working,” Boustany said. “We need to focus on cutting spending, improving American competitiveness, and improving the climate for businesses to grow and develop in this country.”

Boustany noted that job growth in Louisiana continues to be stifled by the slow progress on drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico. “Many small businesses in Louisiana are still suffering as a result of the moratorium on drilling and the subsequent defacto moratorium,” Boustany said. “That deterrent from job growth needs to be resolved immediately, and I will continue fighting to get Louisiana back to work.”

The report released today shows that only 36,000 new jobs were added in January, far below employment numbers needed to dramatically improve the economy.  The report also revised last year’s job numbers, indicating that fewer jobs were created in 2010 than previously estimated.

As a member of the Ways and Means Committee, Congressman Boustany plays a lead role in shaping effective policies to grow the economy, including finalizing trade agreements, revitalizing American competitiveness abroad and revising the tax code to foster business development in Louisiana.

As the Louisiana Legislature readies itself for redistricting following the release of the U.S. Census Bureau’s report on demographic and population data, Acadiana’s two congressmen, Charles Boustany and newly elected Jeff Landry, are already squaring off in the national media for what could be a showdown if their districts are consolidated.

The state will lose one of its seven seats, the question is how the remaining six districts will be reconfigured.

Read more – Boustany and Landry positioning for potential congressional race

Several Acadiana Parishes are pushing for one person to represent Louisiana’s coast.

It’s part of the redistricting process coming up in March and supporters say it could give Gulf industries a louder voice in Washington.

Supporters are traveling around the state to gather support for a coastal congressional district.

Wednesday night, they visited St. Mary Parish Council as well as the Iberia Parish Council- both councils saying ‘yes’ to one coastal voice.

Read more – Coastal Congressional District gaining momentum

The four – Reps. Bill Cassidy, Steve Scalise, Charles Boustany and Rodney Alexander, signed on to a letter to EPA head Lisa Jackson demanding that higher standards for ozone levels be revisited before implementation. EPA is attempting, apparently by regulatory fiat and not through established procedure, to mandate that ozone “attainment levels” be improved across the country from the pre-2008 standard of .084 parts per million to somewhere between .060-.070 ppm. This, obviously, will cripple the state’s industrial sector.

The letter to Jackson, who is incidentally a native New Orleanian despite her agency’s seemingly relentless assault on Louisiana’s economy, reads as follows…

The Honorable Lisa Jackson
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Ariel Rios Building
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20460

Dear Administrator Jackson:

We write to you today to express our concern regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) reconsideration of the 2008 National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone.  This action departs from the normal five-year NAAQS review schedule established by the Clean Air Act.   We strongly support protecting the environment and ensuring the health of our constituents, but we have serious concerns that EPA’s departure from regular order in relation to an Ozone NAAQS review will have a significant negative impact on the economies of our states without enhancing air quality.  We are concerned proposals to lower the recently revised NAAQS will hurt working families and greatly increase operating costs for manufacturers during this time of serious economic difficulty.

As you know, the Clean Air Act requires that EPA conduct a detailed review of each NAAQS every five years.  This review, with extensive process, public input and comment, was last completed for the ozone standard in 2008.  Some groups argued for a significant tightening of the standard and others, including respected members of the scientific community, believed that the existing ozone standard was adequately protective.  In the end, EPA strengthened its existing 0.084 ppm standard to a much more stringent 0.075 ppm, declared that level adequately protective of human health and the environment, and commenced preparations for the next five year review. 

When EPA changed the ozone standard in 2008, many of our states were still coming into attainment of the old .084 ppm standard, and suffered significant economic and growth restrictions under the required state implementation plan (SIP).  States must again revise their SIPs to meet EPA’s more stringent 0.075 ppm standard, with even more adverse economic impacts.

This year, despite being midway through the ongoing five year NAAQS review process, EPA has proposed to bypass the transparency and technical input afforded by that statutory process and apply a more aggressive and costly ozone mandate.  Moreover, it does not appear that EPA is relying on any new scientific evidence in its decision, but is simply using the same data from 2008 to now reach a different conclusion.    

Areas that will not be able to meet EPA’s proposed new NAAQS will face increased costs to businesses, restrictions on development and expansion, and limits on transportation funding.  EPA’s new proposed standard could nearly triple the number of nonattainment areas and, under the high end of EPA’s own estimate, add $90 billion dollars per year to already high operating costs faced by  manufacturers, agriculture, and other sectors.  

In addition, recent studies indicate that each affected state could lose tens of thousands of jobs, if not more.  If our local businesses can’t compete, our constituents will lose their jobs, their health care and other employee benefits for their families.  Our communities will also lose local tax revenue critical to funding public education and municipal infrastructure. 

We believe that we can and should continue to improve our environment, but we are concerned that EPA’s action has real, detrimental impacts on the people they are trying to protect.  Given the heavy job loss potential this policy could result in and the absence of any new scientific data, we strongly believe changing the current NAAQS standard outside of the ongoing five year review process is unnecessary.

The Congressmen are following up to some degree on another letter, this one from the Baton Rouge Clean Air Coalition – a consortium of state regulatory agencies, business groups and academicians – which had objected to increased EPA mandates on ozone for several reasons. Among them…

• “We have reviewed EPA’s report and analysis of studies used to support revision of the ozone standard and find the health impact assessments very tenuous. … This information certainly doesn’t provide a strong, irrefutable basis for a decision with the potential impacts of a lower ozone standard.”
• “Louisiana’s ozone problems are minor and the imposition of the new lower ozone standards is unwarranted overreach by EPA”
• “…at the lower end of EPA’s proposed primary ozone standard, every monitoring site in the state would be designated nonattainment.”
• “Increased costs for utilities, fuel, food, consumer goods, etc. that will accompany the implementation of a new, lower ozone standard will likely reduce the standard of living for many and may force families with limited budgets to reduce spending for nutrition and health care.”
• “Each of the parishes designated nonattainment under the proposed standards will have their economic development activities seriously impaired by the stigma of ozone nonattainment. Industries in these parishes will see increased regulatory burdens, more costly emission controls, extensive monitoring and reporting, and more difficult permitting. Communities in these parishes can expect to be subject to auto emissions testing, possible transportation restrictions, and requirements that their transportation plans conform to state ozone attainment plans. Most of the potentially‐affected parishes do not have the financial and human resources to deal with the new federal regulatory burdens.”

The long and short of the new EPA rule will be another significant imposition of cost upon Louisiana’s economy at a time the state simply can’t afford a new rope around its neck. If you’re in a “non-attainment” area, which virtually each of the state’s markets will become should a new standard take effect, industrial permits will be impossible to get. That could wipe out efforts to lure Hawker Beechcraft to Baton Rouge or halt the planned construction of Nucor Steel’s facility in St. James Parish, not to mention any significant upgrades or expansions to refineries or petrochemical plants along the Mississippi.

But that’s not all. Because traffic is a generator of ozone, road projects in “non-attainment” areas will likely be halted. That’s lousy news for the future of Baton Rouge’s infrastructure, and it’s also likely a death knell for the completion of I-49 where it isn’t finished.

And the fact that the EPA’s rules on permitting will require the purchase of “offsets” for emissions merely impose Cap And Trade through regulatory fiat.

The good news here is that the EPA isn’t the only player in the game. In 2008, the Bush administration proposed pushing the .084 ppm standard to .075 ppm, but legal challenges kept that standard from being implemented. The same will likely happen now. And the GOP majority in the House beginning in January will have the ability to rein in the EPA through the power of the purse.

Still, there are those who are pleased with the EPA’s attempts to tighten the noose. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network, a group which has camped out in court on this issue in the past, hails the new standard of .060-.070 ppm.

“We will be thrilled if they get to that number,” said Mary Lee Orr, LEAN executive director. “The citizens will be so happy to have more protective standards for themselves. It’s taken a long time to get here.”

Whether the “citizens” will be happy with the loss of blue-collar jobs in Louisiana industry as a result of efforts to attain an imperceptible reduction in ozone is debatable. But another Usual Suspect in the emissions battle, Tulane’s Environmental Law Clinic, is crowing as well. Said Adam Babitch, a spokesman for the law clinic…

“It should mean cleaner air and fewer health care problems,” Babitch said. “The bottom line is that Baton Rouge has never been in compliance. We have made progress, but it’s a dollar late and day short.”

Baton Rouge, in fact, met EPA standards on ozone in September for the first time since the standards were enacted. Babitch is correct that if the EPA continues to move the goalposts the five-parish area around the Capitol City will remain in noncompliance. Compliance with the national unemployment rate, however, might be more attainable if the industrial sector is subjected to harsher regulation.

Overall, the GOP did very well in Congressional races in Louisiana. While the delegation remained 6-1 Republican, the Democrats picked up a seat in New Orleans that was won by a Republican under unusual circumstances while losing, as expected, Democrat Charlie Melancon’s seat in south Louisiana.  

Continue reading at http://winwithjmc.com/archives/2090

John Couvillon is a political consultant. His company is JMC Enterprises of Louisiana, Inc. with expertise in the data analysis aspects of political campaigns, such as poll sample development/analysis, development of targeted voter files for phone canvassing or mail outs, campaign strategy, and demographic consulting. See his site at WinWithJMC.com for more information.

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WINNERS

1. David Vitter. Three years ago this guy was political dead meat. Tonight, he’s one of the strongest Republicans in the Senate. Vitter’s 57-38 blowout of Charlie Melancon tells us three things. First, his DC Madam scandal is over. Done. Melancon’s camp never did get the message that the people of Louisiana heard about it, processed it and decided it was none of their business. You can say we’re permissive of scandal here, and maybe you’re right. But at the end of the day, what the electorate decided was that they’re more interested in what Vitter can do to represent them than what he does in his personal life – or did 10 years ago.

Vitter will also return to a Senate that, while it didn’t flip to the GOP, will be far more heavily populated with ideological cohorts than the one he left for the campaign last month. The Rand Pauls, Pat Toomeys, Mike Lees, Marco Rubios and Ron Johnsons of the world will be much more likely to stand with Vitter than with Lindsey Graham, and as a result Vitter will find himself with more allies come January.

2. Jay Dardenne. Dardenne’s campaign was low-key, despite being blamed for “attacks” on Caroline Fayard. That was a ridiculous charge, as the Republican merely pointed out a few facts about Fayard’s history and background that were not of a personal nature. She’s a lefty, despite what she attempted to cast herself as. Dardenne also did a nice job of generally limiting his campaign to things the Lt. Governor actually does. It’s clear the voters responded positively. Dardenne won a 57-43 race which was several points higher than his people expected.

3. Jeff Landry. For a first-time Congressional candidate, Landry’s 64-36 blowout of Ravi Sangisetty in the 3rd District race was definitely impressive. Landry annihilated Sangisetty in the debates and he outworked the Democrat on the campaign trail, as the parish-by-parish numbers attest:

• Ascension: Landry, 61-39
• Assumption: Landry, 58-42
• Iberia: Landry, 71-29
• Jefferson: Landry, 75-25
• Lafourche: Landry, 68-32
• Plaquemines: Landry, 69-31
• St. Bernard: Landry, 67-33
• St. Charles: Landry, 64-36
• St. James: Sangisetty, 55-45
• St. John: Sangisetty, 56-44
• St. Martin: Landry, 72-28
• St. Mary: Landry, 65-35
• Terrebonne: Landry, 63-37

Sangisetty is from Terrebonne, which should give an indication of how big a win this was. And despite the nastiness of the race, there was an impressive 41 percent turnout in LA-3. The narrative we were sold was that Landry was toxic and a wider electorate would reject him. That narrative was a lie; Landry won huge majorities in 11 of the 13 parishes in the district. He’s got a big future in Louisiana politics, though it’s pretty clear he’s going to have to wade through nasty campaigns every time he gets a race.

4. Cedric Richmond. Richmond’s 65-33 destruction of Joseph Cao was the biggest surprise of the state’s races, though given the size of the margin one wonders if it didn’t reflect an implosion on the part of the Republican incumbent. But Richmond did what he did without getting help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which thought about making a buy for him and ultimately opted not to. He clearly benefited from street money Caroline Fayard’s campaign spent in New Orleans.

Richmond’s race also indicated something not dissimilar to Vitter’s victory; namely, that voters in tonight’s Louisiana elections are more interested in how they’ll be represented in terms of policy than in the personal histories and/or failings of their politicians. Vitter survived the DC madam scandal because a large majority of Louisiana’s voters approve of his conservative Senate record, and in like manner Richmond won despite a rather frightening ethical record because at the end of the day the majority of the voters in New Orleans want a typical Congressional Black Caucus member, and he’s certainly that.

5. Charles Boustany. Boustany might be the biggest beneficiary of the GOP House takeover, as he’s set to take over a subcommittee in Appropriations. That, of course, could be good for Louisiana as a whole – though it’s unlikely anybody is getting much pork in the next Congress given the public mandate for fiscal discipline shown tonight. But Boustany isn’t alone; Steve Scalise is expected to get a key spot on the Steering Committee and Rodney Alexander is expected to get a subcommittee chair in Ways and Means. John Fleming is also in line to pick up a spot on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would increase his profile and also give the folks involved in the Haynesville Shale play a larger voice in fighting federal efforts to strangle natural gas production through regulatory enslavement.

LOSERS

1. The Fayards. To have spent the kind of money the Fayard campaign spent on a special-election Lieutenant Governor’s race, when the job comes up for re-election next year, is enough to put her at the top of this list. But to have gone through that much money and lost, and to be left with the questions about how the campaign was financed which remain in its wake, make tonight a very, very bad night for Louisiana’s premier Democrat campaign funding family.

Caroline Fayard did create some name recognition for herself in this race, which it was clear she was trying to do. But getting trounced 57-43 after a poll earlier this week showed her just eight points down indicates she perhaps underperformed.

And at the end of the day, accusations of money-laundering from her father through the Louisiana Democrat Party to her campaign are likely to haunt Fayard and perhaps hamper her future political prospects. She’s likely to be back, but it’s clear voters were not comfortable with what they saw from the Fayard family. And a 14-point spread says it’s not just that she was a Democrat running in a Republican year.

2. The Louisiana Democrat Party. The Fayard campaign-finance issues are likely to land the state’s Democrats in a pickle with the state Board of Ethics, which raised lots of questions particularly when the party failed to file 48-hour reports in the two weeks prior to the election after the money-laundering issue was raised. That amounts to a cherry on top of the otherwise devastating results for the Democrats – who, it appears, don’t seem to be competitive almost anywhere. They failed to even run candidates in the 1st and 7th Districts, and outside of Richmond no Democrat congressional candidate did better than Ravi Sangisetty’s 36 percent.

We’ll have to do a full count tomorrow, but the number we’ll be looking for is how many parishes were won by Democrat candidates tonight compared to Republicans. From the looks of it, that’s going to be a very lopsided number. And that indicates the Democrats aren’t competitive on a statewide level anymore. What this portends for next year will be interesting; they’ll have a tough time mounting challenges to any statewide races save for Attorney General, which Buddy Caldwell will be a favorite to hold.

3. Charlie Melancon. We didn’t see his concession speech live, but we’re told it was an exercise in bitterness, bile and classlessness. If that’s true, then it’s of a piece with the shameful way Melancon conducted himself in the last debate, in which he acted like he was trying to start a brawl rather than offer leadership to Louisiana through the Senate seat he was running for.

Melancon’s campaign was a joke, frankly. He sent Anzalone Liszt out to push-poll the people of Louisiana and lie to the voters (and prospective donors) about the state of the race, he failed completely to offer a vision for the state he’d present as our senator, he couldn’t offer us anything more than hookers and troubled Vitter staffers and he told a lot of provable lies throughout the campaign. For him not to own up, after it was over and the result was a surprise to no one, to the fact that the voters soundly rejected what he had to offer indicates that despite what he repeated time and time again about Vitter’s ethics the reality is that there might be more questions about the former sugar-cane lobbyist and Edwin Edwards crony from a character standpoint than about his intended victim.

Melancon’s next stop is likely Washington, where he’ll probably land some cush gig as the Undersecretary of Bass Fishing in the Department of Nothing. One would hope so. After his performance in Congress over the past year and the way he embarrassed himself in this campaign it’s unlikely he’ll be able to pull a Billy Tauzin or John Breaux and cash in as a lobbyist. And as for ever getting elected to office again, he can flat-out forget it.

4. Bobby Jindal. Jindal spent a great deal of time and effort outside of Louisiana working for gubernatorial and senatorial candidates, and as best we can tell he actually managed to pick a decent number of winners with his endorsements. But if Jindal’s goal in all that galivanting was to boost his national stature, outside of making himself the subject of a FOIA request from Democrat National Committee opposition researchers to the Pentagon it doesn’t appear he put himself on the map as a presidential or vice-presidential candidate.

Meanwhile, a lot of hay was made about Jindal’s lack of endorsements for Vitter, Dardenne and the state’s GOP congressional candidates. As it turned out, none of them needed the governor to pitch in, other than perhaps Joseph Cao (who was probably helpless anyway). Jindal could argue that he didn’t hurt anybody by not endorsing, and that’s probably true. But he didn’t help anybody, either, and a governor is supposed to help to build his state’s party. Jindal clearly didn’t do that, and there will be a lot of ruffled feathers for him to smooth over – and he’ll have to set about doing it immediately.

Because Jindal is going to have a massive budget fight on his hands. And in state treasurer John Kennedy, who is the most ambitious politician in Louisiana, he now has an adversary with designs on his job and a nose for media attention. The more contentious that budget fight gets, the more Jindal might think he would have liked to have gathered and/or strengthened allies among the state’s politicians and their supporters.

5. Joseph Cao. Re-election was always going to be a heavy lift for Cao, and when Fayard made the runoff and spread street money all over New Orleans it got a lot tougher. So the fact that he lost tonight isn’t necessarily all that terrible a disgrace.

But when you get beat 65-33, you can’t sugar-coat it. That’s a mudhole being stomped in your butt. It’s hard to even analyze such a poor performance. Maybe at the end of the day, you just can’t pull black vote in LA-2 unless you’re black. It sure doesn’t look like Cao could despite his effort at doing so.

• Any talk about David Vitter’s vulnerability in a primary or general election is just that – talk. He received a whopping 88% of the vote against two primary opponents (one of whom, Chet Traylor, initially got plenty of favorable press time to promote his candidacy), with at least 66% of the vote in each parish.
• If anything, Charlie Melancon ought to be more concerned. His two opponents were even less known to Democratic/Independent voters than Vitter’s opponents,  yet he only received 71% of the vote. More revealing is the distribution of that vote – while his highest percentages were in parishes with a large black population and/or his own Congressional district, his performance in several rural parishes was downright embarrassing. In fact, in five rural north Louisiana parishes, he received less than 50% of the vote.

Melancon Vote By Parish

• Republican enthusiasm was present at the polls today, just like it was for early voting. Though only 26% of the voters are registered Republican, Republican turnout was 2.5 times that of Democratic/Independent turnout (Independents can only vote in Democratic primaries), which resulted in 47% of the vote being cast in the Republican primary.
• Congressional primaries, with one major exception, were uneventful. Five Republican Congressmen (Steve Scalise of Metairie, “Joseph” Cao of New Orleans, John Fleming of Minden, Bill Cassidy of Baton Rouge, and Charles Boustany of Lafayette) received no primary opposition. Six year incumbent Rodney Alexander dispatched his primary opponent with 89% of the vote (he received at least 79% of the vote in each parish), which is identical to the 90% of the vote he received in the Republican primary two years ago.
• On the Democratic side, both contested primaries ended up being settled tonight. In New Orleans, state representative Cedric Richmond won his primary with 60% of the vote against three opponents – it didn’t hurt that he had the Landrieu endorsement. Up in northwest Louisiana, Methodist minister David Melville won his primary with 81% of the vote.
• (UPDATED 8/31 AM) The one primary which was bitterly contested, and will go into a runoff, was the Republican primary for Charlie Melancon’s vacated House seat, which stretches from Chalmette to New Iberia as far north as Gonzales. Former House Speaker (and former Democrat) Hunt Downer started off the heavy favorite, but made a critical error near the end of the campaign: he backed out of a candidate debate sponsored by the Baton Rouge Tea Party – to attend a fundraiser. This cancellation enraged Tea Party activists, who immediately began blasting Downer for this, for his legislative voting record, and the fact that he had served in the (Democratic) Blanco administration. While attorney Jeff Landry benefitted from this “establishment vs insurgent” matchup, engineer Kristian Magar also made a respectable showing, with a considerable assist from Tea Party activists through energetic use of social networking sites like Facebook.  In the end, Landry received 49.6% of the vote, compared to 36% for Downer and 14% for Magar. Will there be a runoff ? In addition to the fact that Landry was about 100 votes short of winning outright, the distribution of the vote should give Downer pause while he ponders whether it is worth the time and expense to contest the runoff. Basically, Downer was a “one parish candidate” –though he carried his home parish of Terrebonne with a very respectable 64% of the vote (versus Landry’s 26% and Magar’s 10%), he lost every other parish to Landry. In fact, outside of Terrebonne, 59% of the Republican vote went to Landry, while Downer received 25% and Magar received 16% - it’s important to note that both Landry and Magar shared an Iberia Parish voting base. Curiously, the absentee vote (which made up 17% of the total) went 52-40% for Landry, while those who voted on Election day gave Landry 49%, Downer 35%, and Magar 16%.

(UPDATED 8/31 AM) In addition to the Republican runoff for the 3^rd Congressional district, the “everything else” primary is in five weeks on Saturday, October 2. While the Lieutenant Governor’s race at the top of the ticket, there is also a myriad of judgeship races and municipal/school board races. The deadline to register to vote in this election is Wednesday, September 1. Early voting will be from September 18 to 25, and the deadline to mail in a ballot (that is, if the voter will be unable to make it to the polls on Election Day) is Friday, October 1.

Finally, West Virginia is having a special election this November to fill the seat of the late senator Robert Byrd. The primry to choose party nominees was held tonight, but was relatively uneventful. Governor Joe Manchin received 73% of the Democratic primary vote, while mining company owner John Raese (who has run several times before statewide and lost) received 71% of the vote in the Republican primary.

John is a political consultant and blogger with JMC Enterprises with expertise in poll sample development and analysis, development of targeted voter files for phone canvassing or mail outs, campaign strategy and demographic consulting, among other things. See his site at WinWithJMC.com for more information.