It took virtually zero time at all before the state’s legacy media found a Democrat politician with a cushy “who-you-know” job to screech like a banshee about legislation protecting girls’ sports from invasion by biological males with the usual argument. Here comes J.P. Morrell, one of the most anti-business legislators we’ve ever seen, now to lament the future of New Orleans’ economy…

Leaders in Louisiana’s tourism industry — particularly those centered on New Orleans — said the restrictions on transgender people currently under consideration in the state Legislature may drive away major sporting events like the NCAA’s Final Four and the large business conventions that sustain the New Orleans economy.

If people and corporations avoid Louisiana to protest hostile transgender restrictions, it would have a ripple effect that extends far beyond New Orleans. Tourism is one of the major drivers of the state’s overall economy. Tax dollars associated with it also support higher education institutions, health care, highways, K-12 schools and law enforcement in all of Louisiana. 

“We could lose everything,” said J.P. Morrell, who sits on the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District board, which oversees the Louisiana Superdome and Smoothie King Center. “We just can’t afford to knock out one of the legs that is propping up our economy.” 

Needless to say, Morrell ought to have Louisiana’s legislative majority, and probably even a good chunk of its Black Caucus, though we won’t hold our breath on that, rolling their eyes at him.

What was J.P. Morrell’s cumulative rating from the LABI scorecard before he cycled out of the state senate and into that plum gig with the Stadium and Exploration District was a dreadful 17 percent. Only two senators, Yvonne Dorsey Colomb and Karen Carter Peterson, were worse.

J.P. Morrell chaired the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee and he did everything he could to raise taxes on business and ruin Louisiana’s economy. Actions taken or supported by J.P. Morrell laid waste to Louisiana’s industrial construction expansion and negatively affect the state’s economic competitiveness with its neighbors – at one point there was $170 billion in the economic development pipeline in the industrial sector and now there is practically nothing.

That’s who J.P. Morrell is, and now he’s terrified that Louisiana is going to lose out on a few tourist events which by the way are a whole lot less valuable now than they used to be.

If you think that packed stadiums for Final Fours and bowl games and so on are a sure thing, you’ve been asleep for more than a year. Those had diminishing returns before COVID came along; now, they’re more speculative than ever.

By the way, how come J.P. Morrell is piping up about Louisiana’s event-marketing economy? We looked around for some mention of his name in connection to the business lost when LaToya Cantrell wiped out everything New Orleans had to offer, and – shockingly – came up empty.

J.P. Morrell had not a word to say when Cantrell canceled every major event in that city except for Saints games, which she more or less prevented any fans from going to see. Cantrell was so unhinged that she declared jihad against the Christian singer Lauren Daigle for getting up on a stage at an impromptu Christian rally in the French Quarter and singing a song in front of a few hundred people, and J.P. Morrell had no problem with it.

Or at least not enough of a problem to tell Cantrell to cool it.

And now J.P. Morrell worries that Katy Perry won’t put on a concert in New Orleans if Louisiana passes bills preventing the medical community from mutilating kids with emotional problems or mutilating women’s sports. He says other cities will gladly “poach” New Orleans.

Are you serious? Now he’s suddenly concerned about economic competitiveness?

He ran and hid under his bed rather than advocating for Louisiana tourism and event marketing for the past year. Bet he soaked up lots of benefits from being on that board, though.

And now, J.P. Morrell wants to flop the economy card over the bills protecting girls’ sports?

Drop dead, dude. Your act is tired, it’s weak and it’s far too dishonest for credit.

It would be one thing had a weak Republican from, say, Jefferson Parish squirted out a similar complaint. We wouldn’t be surprised to see something along those lines as those bills progress in the House and Senate, and of course if they come from refuseniks on the petition to reopen the state last year we’ll certainly let loose the dogs on the perpetrators.

But what J.P. Morrell ought to do is be honest and say that he’s for men invading women’s sports, sharing the locker rooms, putting female athletes in physical danger, knocking girls out of the competition for college athletic scholarships and generally destroying the entire concept of women’s sports.

He should say that. Then we’ll know who J.P. Morrell, a political hack descended from two of the biggest political hacks in modern memory in New Orleans, Arthur Morrell and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, is also a cultural Marxist hack bent on destroying our civil society because he has his orders from the Hard Left loons in charge of the national Democrat Party.

Don’t play like you suddenly care about New Orleans’ economy. Not when you have a legislative record of laying absolute waste to it. There is only so much bullshit decent people should have to tolerate.