I toyed with the idea of writing political commentary for years before I actually submitted my first piece to The Hayride.  I knew that I always wanted to do it, but the complexities of a middle-class life and family always seemed to get in the way.  There always seemed to be too many school plays, sporting events, and too much going on at my real job to take on another hobby.  But I always knew that eventually I would start doing it.

What I did not expect is the direction that it would take once I finally took the plunge.  I always envisioned writing about liberals, and how their policies do not make sense, and how they are taking this country down the wrong path at breakneck speeds.

I have yet to write a single column about that.

What angered me and drove me to finally start writing is the people who told us that they were conservative Republicans to get elected and then acted like they were anything but conservative once they got in office.  I can’t even be mad at the Democrats in Louisiana.  They are doing exactly what they told us that they would do.  I don’t expect them to support conservative ideals because they never told me that they would.  And to be blunt, there are simply not enough of them in Louisiana to make any difference these days.

I am also not fond of the term RINO.  Let’s face it, many Republicans are simply not very conservative.  And that is just fine, if they will just be honest about it.  If someone tells me that they are a moderate Republican, that is just fine.  I probably won’t vote for you, but at least I know where you really stand.

Our problem in Louisiana is fake conservatives, and it is a huge problem.  Our legislature is full of people who claimed to be the most conservative politician to ever slap an “R” behind their name.  And most of them are simply lying to us.  Or if they aren’t lying, they don’t hold the conservative principles very deeply and cast them aside as soon as something better (for them) comes along.

Cameron Henry was a reliable conservative for years, until he got elected to the position of Senate President.  Since then, he has made it clear that protecting his fellow senators from difficult votes is much more important than advancing a conservative agenda.  The senate, and specifically Senate Judiciary A committee, has killed almost every significant conservative reform that has been debated in this new legislature.  Henry picks the committee members and assigns legislation to the committees.  Judiciary A is his “kill committee”.  That is where he sends legislation that he doesn’t like so that it will die a quick death.  He looks nothing like the conservative that he seemed to be prior to 2024.  One can only conclude that his conservative values conflicted with his desire to be Senate President and the need for power was more important than those values to him.

Now let’s move to the House of Representatives.  I have already written about the HB200 fiasco of a couple of weeks ago.  You can find that column here.   True conservatives simply do not vote for a government takeover of a private political organization.  That is antithetical to the core values of conservatism.  In that case, it was petty politics and a desire for revenge that was more important to seven Republicans than the conservative values that they claim to hold dear.  Those seven were Representatives Mike Bayham, Beau Beaullieu, Les Farnum, Dixon McMakin, Polly Thomas, Mark Wright and John Wyble.  If one of them happens to be your representative, please remember that they are not the conservative that they claim to be.  HB200 was one of those black and white issues.  Smaller, less intrusive government is the centerpiece of conservatism, and if you are supporting a government take-over of (any) private group, you can’t seriously claim to be a conservative.

Speaking of Mark Wright, as I was writing this column, I ran across HB596 authored by none other than Rep. Wright.  This bill will hide the source of funds that are used to push constitutional amendments, home rule charter changes, and anything else that doesn’t involve an actual candidate.  So now when certain trial lawyers dump tons of money into defeating tort reform, we will no longer be able to see who they are.  Since when does reducing transparency in the political process jive with conservatism?  Rep. Wright has been on a real roll this session.  Of course, he is also one of the “budget busters” from 2023 who blew a couple of billion (plus or minus a few hundred million) of our tax dollars just because they could.  And then mocked the Freedom Caucus members who had the temerity to suggest that the government actually live within its spending cap.

I have also written several columns about carbon capture & sequestration (CCS) over the past year.  A real conservative simply cannot support CCS because it is 100% based on subsidies.  And there is absolutely no justification for being able to seize private property for a CCS pipeline or facility.  To say that it serves the public good is a complete lie.  CCS is happening because the government is paying private companies to do it with our tax dollars.  None of these companies would spend their own money to build a CCS facility, because it does not produce a product.  Quite simply, Louisiana is becoming a dumping ground.  And our supposedly conservative leaders are fighting tooth and nail to make sure that CCS has free rein in our state.  If those companies want to build a CCS facility, let them do so with their own money and stop using ours.  Again, this is a government supported industry which goes completely against the capitalistic principles of conservatism.

I will not include a list of names of CCS supporters in the legislature simply because there are too many of them.  But you can get a good start by reading the list of Natural Resources committee members who consistently voted against any type of regulation or control of CCS last week.  You can find that column here.

The bottom line is that we have not elected the best people to represent us.  We can’t really be blamed for supporting someone who claims to be something that they aren’t.  But once they show their true colors, it is up to us to replace them with someone else.  And sadly, we Louisianians have not been good at that.

But we are getting better.  We did good work in the 2023 election.  We threw out a lot of the fakes and frauds in October 2023.  Unfortunately, a lot of those elected have turned out to look and sound a lot like the ones that they replaced.  So, it is up to us to hold them accountable.  If they lied to us about who they are to get elected, we should replace them with someone else.  Eventually we will get it right.  Or at least I hope that we will…