This year, Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards vetoed 25 non-fiscal bills and via line item veto parts of 3 spending bills.

Some of the bills did not receive sufficient support to override a veto when originally adopted by Louisiana’s legislature and either were not considered during this week’s veto session. Others had just barely failed to hit the required 2/3s vote when they were passed.

In principle, the legislature should consider in a veto session every measure they adopted during the called- or regularly-scheduled session. This would serve as a significant check and balance on the already too-powerful executive branch.

However, we are still in relatively new political terrain regarding the holding of veto sessions. Hopefully, this practice will be normalized regardless of which party occupies the governor’s mansion as it would be healthy for democracy.

That the veto sessions in JBE’S second term were held at all was an accomplishment and significant precedent, to say nothing of the eventual final adoption of bills vetoed by the governor.

Furthermore many if not all of the non-fiscal bills vetoed by Edwards are not dead but are in political purgatory and will see the light of day again next year when they will be reintroduced and almost certainly readopted in their original or improved, less-compromised, form and signed into law by the new, almost-assuredly Republican, governor who will take office in January.

The Democrats in Louisiana have jumped the ideological shark especially in the past few years as a stridently progressive candidate will serve as their standard bearer in lieu of a wily politician who as a candidate contorted his political identity and bucked his national party’s full embrace of the leftist principles and rhetoric that are anathema to a solid majority of Louisiana voters.

Everything gets better with a conservative Republican governor and I have little doubt that one will be leading Louisiana come January 8th 2024.

The Republican legislature did override the governor’s veto of State Representative Gabe Firment’s HB 648 “Stop Harming Our Kids Act” that prohibits doctors from performing “sex change” surgeries on children and further prevents them from prescribing pills or other medical chemicals that stifle or manipulate the natural biological development of young boys and girls.

While winning the battle on 1 out of 25 non-fiscal bills might seem lousy, consider the media reporting and social activist chatter after the veto session ended.

You would’ve thought HB 648 was the only bill that was voted on.

And had the override somehow failed while others were passed, the defeat of HB 648 would’ve been the only action from the veto session seriously covered and framed as a landmark progressive political victory in the Deep South.

The state Capitol legislative chamber galleries were packed almost completely due to one bill.

Not paying any mind to the other 24 bills or the line item vetoes, social conservative groups and leaders celebrated the victory, being only the second veto override of Governor Edwards’ tenure.

An unforced error would’ve been a devastating setback by conservatives going into this fall’s elections.

A number of good bills, particularly Senator Brett Allain’s phase-out of the corporate franchise tax, were not enacted over the governor’s objections.

However any observer who seriously thought that there was going to be a tidal wave of overrides in the veto session had obviously not spent very much time in the State Capitol these past few years.

If anything these voices inadvertently and recklessly tried to make the veto session look more like a win for Governor Edwards than it actually was.

Fortunately conservative groups such as Family Research Council, the State Freedom Caucus Network, and the Louisiana Family Forum did their part to put the override in perspective and were joined by Congressman Mike Johnson in praising the historic Republican legislative victory.

The targets the Democratic governor managed to stop this year will be priorities for adoption by an even more conservative Republican legislature and signed into law by a conservative Republican governor. Perhaps as soon as in a January special session.

And the political gamesmanship that complicated the passage of conservative legislation in the regular and veto override  sessions should be drastically curbed with a new governor.

Change comes slowly and that march is at a far slower pace in Louisiana due to the prevailing political culture. Yet even a single step forward is better than standing in place or a step backward.

Yes there were agonizingly close legislative pop-ups and strikeouts, which were predicted, yet the GOP legislators and social conservative groups who did their part to pack the State Capitol walked off the field of play with a key W.