In an interesting development, a former star conservative legislator is re-entering the political limelight in what could be one of the more contested statewide races. Remember Nancy Landry? She hopes you will.

A press release yesterday afternoon…

Former State Representative and current First Assistant Secretary of State Nancy Landry has decided to run for Secretary of State after the announcement from current Secretary Kyle Ardoin that he will not seek another term.

On her announcement Landry said, “I have enjoyed serving in the Secretary of State’s office for the last 4 years, and I believe I have the knowledge and experience to most effectively uphold the integrity of Louisiana’s elections moving forward. I thank Secretary Ardoin for his service, and I look forward to assuring Louisiana citizens that our elections are fair, secure, and accurate. “

Prior to her service in the Secretary of State’s office, Landry served District 31 (Lafayette and Vermilion Parishes) in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 2008-2019. During her legislative service, she was the Chairman of the House Education Committee, Vice Chair of the Civil Law and Procedure Committee, and served on the House and Governmental Affairs Committee during redistricting in 2011. Landry holds both Bachelors and Juris Doctor degrees from LSU and practiced family law as well as oil and gas and real estate services. Landry was born on a US military base in Japan while her father served in the US Navy, and she has two adult sons.

Landry was a really good House Education Chair, and she did a very commendable job fighting John Bel Edwards’ efforts to kill off the school choice reforms passed under Bobby Jindal. Of course, those efforts weren’t wholly successful, but that wasn’t Landry’s fault. She was also an outspoken voice for fiscal sanity. We really liked her in the Legislature.

Then after she termed out following the 2019 election, Landry signed on with Kyle Ardoin as his first assistant and she’s been mostly out of the political limelight since. She’s got less than $1,000 in her campaign account as of the last filing, which was in December of 2020, so Landry is getting started from the ground up, and two of the entrants into the race, Public Service Commissioner Mike Francis and House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, will have big war chests. Francis can self-finance an almost unlimited race, while Schexnayder has reportedly around $1.2 million to spend. So Landry will have to get out on the fundraising trail pretty quickly.

Is Landry the stand-in or successor to Ardoin? Is she the kinda-sorta de facto incumbent in the race?

That’s certainly how Francis, Schexnayder and grocery magnate Brandon Trosclair, plus the inevitable (probably black) Democrat – are going to paint her. They have to. Without people thinking there’s something horribly wrong going on at the Secretary of State’s office or that Louisiana’s elections aren’t well-managed, there is no reason anybody would vote for changes. Particularly given that Landry’s a reasonably well-accomplished politician who won her three races for state representative with 62 percent, 100 percent and 85 percent.

So the election will be about election integrity and whether the Secretary of State’s office is doing enough to make sure the elections aren’t stolen. We’ll see how the public litigates that one or whether it sees a problem Landry, as the first assistant to Ardoin, would be blamed for. We’re interested to see what the polls say.