Bill Cassidy: ‘New Landrieu Ad Promotes Washington Insider System’

Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) new ad featuring a Republican shipbuilder has come under attack from Congressman and senate-hopeful Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) for what he calls a promotion of the “Washington insider system.”

The ad, which can be seen below, features Chairman of the board and CEO of Bollinger Shipyards Donald “Boysie” Bollinger claiming that Landrieu’s position as Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman is “the most powerful position a person can have for Louisiana.”

Bollinger’s past shows that he is in fact not just a business owner, but quite well-connected to Washington politics. The Hayride reported that the LAGOP found that just seven months ago, Landrieu arranged for Bollinger to receive a federal contract worth $250 million.

“Mary Landrieu’s track record of coming through for ordinary Louisianans doesn’t stack up with what she’s done for her well-connected friends. Her persistent failures — even as President Obama’s energy chair — to stand up to her friend Harry Reid to advance pro-energy, pro-growth policies have cost Louisiana for years. She also failed to tell Louisianans the truth about keeping their doctors under Obamacare and has been a rubber stamp for an Obama agenda that hinges on more spending, more debt and more government intrusion into citizens’ lives.

“Voters are fed up with the failed status quo that Mary Landrieu has come to represent after 18 years in Washington, and she knows it. But instead of changing her tune, all she is offering voters is more of the same.”

To read more about the $250 million Bollinger contract click here.

Also, Bollinger says that with Landrieu as the Chairwoman, she will bring “more boats, more jobs, and more oil and gas” to the state. However, Cassidy says the notion that Landrieu, simply because she is Chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, shows that she is notorious for bringing home the bacon to her well-connected friends back home.

“Mary Landrieu’s most recent advertisements tell us a lot about how central a role she believes the government should play in our daily lives,” Cassidy said in an emailed statement. “Her ad tells us that the government should pick the winners and losers and the politically well-connected benefit.”

Cassidy went on to say Landrieu’s ad reveals that she promotes a “Washington insider system” rather than a level playing field.

“I believe this is exactly what’s wrong with Washington. We need fairness and a level playing field for all; not a Washington insider’s system, like Senator Landrieu’s, where only those in government or those with enough money are the winners,” Cassidy said.

And, as the Times Picayune points out, Landrieu has been very generous with federal funding for Bollinger and his shipyards.

Landrieu has been good for Bollinger Shipyards and its 3,000 workers — helping to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to build Coast Guard cutters at the Lockport shipyard.

The funding continued to Bollinger despite a 2011 Justice Department suit seeking recoupment of money for eight vessels the company lengthened but later proved unseaworthy. U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance dismissed the lawsuit last year, and the Justice Department is now asking the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate the lawsuit.

Bollinger served previously three times as the finance chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party and has been a delegate for every Republican National Convention since 1976.

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